Saving the Mountain Man: An Age Gap

Ex-Military Romance (Bachelorettes of

Blackbear Bluff Book 2) Lilah Hart
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SAVING THE MOUNTAIN MAN
LILAH HART
 Bachelorettes of Blackbear Bluff, Book 2
Version 1.0105

Copyright © 2023 Lilah Hart

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This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.

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 CONTENTS

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Epilogue
1
 SHANE

I was a mechanic, not a tow truck driver. But when Blackbear Bluff got snow, me and my trusty four-wheel-drive pickup got
to work.
“Rescue number one,” I announced to no one in particular.
The car was up ahead—a silver sedan. It sat on the grass next to the road, but at a slant. The back end was solidly in a
ditch, and there was no way I could get it out at that angle. This would require a tow truck.
I flipped on my hazard lights, pulled off the shoulder just behind the car, then checked my rearview mirror for approaching
vehicles. No other cars in sight.
I continued that level of care as I stepped out, walking around the back of my truck and up the embankment toward the car.
It couldn’t hurt to be careful, just in case a car blasted over that hill behind me.
By the time I reached the passenger door of the car, the snow was coming down so hard, I could only make out the form of
someone sitting in the driver’s seat. Was it male? Female? No telling.
But even as I arrived at the passenger window, I couldn’t see much, thanks to the fogged-up glass. In any other situation, I’d
hightail it out of here. I wasn’t a cop. I wasn’t even armed. I was just here to help out.
In these parts, sneaking up on cars was a good way to get shot.
“Excuse me,” I called out, not sure what would happen if I knocked on the glass. “Are you okay in there?”
The blob on the other side of the glass was moving now, and I definitely made out curves and some long hair. The driver
was a woman. I looked up the road in each direction, then made my way around the front of the car. If she was hurt, I wouldn’t
be much help. I wasn’t a trained paramedic or anything, and I had no idea how long it would take to get emergency personnel
up here.
“Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay.”
I chanted that to myself as I approached the driver’s door. Suddenly, that door opened, pushing so far out into the road that
if a car had been passing, it would have knocked it right off. Luckily, no one was coming.
Holding on to the hood of the car, I made my way to the door just in time to see a blonde head of hair poking out, followed
by a light blue coat. But what really captured my attention was the face. Beautiful blue eyes framed by long, dark lashes and a
pair of utterly kissable lips with just a hint of shine.
“You have to help Max,” she said. “I think he’s okay. Just shaken up. He wasn’t belted in or anything. I don’t know if that’s
against the law here. Are you a police officer?”
That was a lot. And it was said breathlessly while she scanned the area. Panic filled her eyes as she looked back into the
car.
“Are you okay, Max?”
Max? I hadn’t seen anyone else in the car. Maybe Max was her kid. But surely, she wouldn’t have been driving around with
a child not belted in. Not to judge or anything, but that would be fucked up.
Then I heard it. Whimpering. I added that to the sweet lilt of the woman’s voice when she spoke to Max, as well as the fact
that he wasn’t belted in.
Max was a dog.
“He’s in the back seat, pressed up against the door,” she said. “I tried to squeeze over the seat. I think he’s scared. Or cold.
Do you think we could get the back door on the other side open?”
I was staring at her when she returned her gaze to my face. I knew I needed to say something. Gaping like a lovestruck
teenager wouldn’t help the matter.
“Why don’t we get you into my truck?” I asked. “It’s warm, and it’ll keep you safe from passing vehicles.”
“Not without my dog.” She shook her head. “He’s my emotional support animal. He needs me.”
Didn’t people need their support animals, not the other way around? I was pretty sure that was how it worked. But it was
too cold out here to stand around arguing.
I looked up the road. Still no cars approaching, but that could change.
 “Max can come too,” I said. “Let’s go around and get him.”
“Max can be skittish around strangers,” she warned.
Crap. Was some dog going to bite my hand off? I hoped it wasn’t one of those giant dogs with big teeth. Little dogs could
bite too, but with their smaller mouths, they could do less damage in a shorter amount of time. At least that’s the way I was
looking at it.
“Whatever we’re doing, let’s do it,” I said.
Without waiting for her response, I started around the front of the vehicle, heading straight to the passenger side of the car.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her following, but I got to the door well ahead of her. I peeked through the window, getting
just enough of a break in the fog to make out a small puff of white fur.
“How long have you been stranded here?” I asked as the woman approached.
That was when I got a better look at her face. There were worry lines around her eyes, and her jaw was clenched. She was
stressed—maybe even anxious, judging by the way her eyes seemed to dance around. Maybe she’d calm down once she saw
the dog was okay.
“Just a few minutes,” she said. “It’s amazing you got here so fast. I just called.”
I frowned. “I happened to be driving by.”
That wasn’t entirely true. I ventured out to see if anyone needed help, with no idea the snow was about to get worse. I was
mostly looking out for locals, and this woman definitely wasn’t a local. The Florida tags on her car told me she probably
wasn’t even used to snow.
“I spoke to someone.” She looked past me at the road again. “They were supposed to be sending the police.”
I almost laughed out loud at that. There wasn’t a police department in this town. Just the local sheriff. He wasn’t all that
helpful in situations like this.
As if sensing he was being ignored, Max let out a little bark. It was the high-pitched yip that I’d expect a small white dog to
make.
Again, I scanned the road to verify we were safe and pulled on the handle. The door popped open, catching on the ground.
Luckily, there would be enough space for me to squeeze in and grab the dog, but I stopped myself, remembering Max might
bite.
“I’ll grab him,” she said.
I stepped back and let Max’s owner retrieve him. As she bent over, though, I couldn’t help checking out her ass. That was
probably wrong of me, but I was in dire need of a good lay. I’d had a long-distance relationship with a woman in Raleigh a
couple of years ago, and it ended with so much drama, I’d stayed to myself since.
I far preferred my own company to the emotional highs and lows of being in a relationship. But a woman like this might be
able to change my mind.
“It’s okay,” she said to her dog as she squeezed back out of the doorway, standing.
As I stared at her, cuddling the little dog in her arms, something weird happened to me. It was an almost overwhelming
feeling, this attraction. It went well beyond those generous curves and plump pink lips. This was a woman who took care of her
emotional support dog.
And I suddenly had the urge to take care of both of them.
Okay, the chill was definitely getting to me. I gestured toward my truck, then looked back at her car.
“Do you have anything you need to take with you?” I asked.
“Take with me?”
“I’m getting you out of here,” I said. “It’s not safe.”
“But my car…” She looked toward it. “And the wedding.”
Oh. Now things made sense.
“You’re here for Bo Phillips’ wedding?” I asked.
She nodded. “Max is the ring bearer.”
The dog was the ring bearer. Now, I’d heard it all.
“Can you get me up to the cabin?” she asked.
Bo was getting married at his dad’s cabin. Unfortunately, that cabin was all the way at the top of the mountain.
“I don’t think that’s wise,” I said. “Not with these road conditions. Where are you staying?”
“The cabin,” she said.
That wasn’t good. “Hop in and we’ll discuss it. Where’s your luggage?”
“The trunk.” She gestured in that direction, then gasped. “My purse is on the front seat. Let me grab it.”
Somehow, I ended up holding the dog. I was pretty sure it was my fault. I’d automatically reached out, like I was offering to
take her purse. Instead, I found myself holding a living, breathing creature, tiny though it was.
That little creature looked up at me with big, soulful eyes as he snuggled up to my chest. I felt that tug on my heart again. I
didn’t like little dogs. I’d had a golden retriever growing up. She was the sweetest dog—same heart-tugging face that this one
had. But with a golden retriever, I never had to worry about accidentally stepping on her when I walked around my house.
The woman closed her car door and started back toward me. “Got it.”
She reached out for Max, and her hand came into direct contact with my chest. Sure, I wore a thick down jacket, but I felt
the touch anyway.
As she moved in a little closer, I got a whiff of her vanilla scent. She smelled good enough to eat, and I wanted to lick
every inch of her body.
“Thank you,” she said, looking up at me as she pulled Max to her chest. “It was killing me, thinking we might be stranded
here. I can’t do that to Max.”
Max? What about her? Did she care more about the dog than herself?
I didn’t have time to worry about that, though. I needed to get both this woman and her dog somewhere warm and safe.
2
 MEREDITH

I t was just too treacherous. That was what my rescuer said, and I couldn’t disagree.
Almost as soon as we were in his truck, the snow started coming down harder. I snuggled Max closer to me, terrified.
At any second, we could go off the side of this mountain, I was sure. Never mind that there were guardrails on each side.
Anxiety trumped common sense every single time.
“We’ll wait it out here,” he said suddenly, turning into a driveway.
I looked over at him for answers and was once again struck speechless by those handsome features. He had the beginnings
of a beard. I suspected he just hadn’t bothered to shave for a while. There was something so hot about that. And it was coupled
with lips that looked utterly kissable and green eyes that seemed to penetrate my soul.
Yeah, I’d read about this. In a high-stress situation, people sometimes felt an attraction to each other. My emotions were
high right now, and I couldn’t associate that with him, right?
“This is my place,” he said in answer to a question I hadn’t asked. I was gaping at him like a fool. That probably gave
away what I was thinking. “I’ll get the two of you settled in and scope out the situation. Bo lives three doors down.”
Emerald’s fiancé lived three doors down from this guy? I relaxed a little. This was a small town. Bad things didn’t happen
in small towns, did they?
Regardless, there was something about this guy that made me trust him. I did not trust men. Not ever.
“Between Bo and me, we can figure out a way to get to the top of the mountain,” he said. “But first, we need to check in on
Bo. Make sure he’s not up there already.”
He pulled up to the end of the driveway, which put us in front of a garage that sat next to the house. Above the garage doors
was a big, wooden sign that read Shane’s Auto Repair. Was this Shane? Probably so. It made sense that a mechanic would be
helping out people stranded by the roadside in a snowstorm.
“Once the snow lightens up, I’ll get your car towed here to check out,” the guy said. “Let’s go.”
He climbed out and was across the driveway before I had a chance to reach for the door handle. He pulled the garage door
up manually. Did he not have a garage door opener? Whatever the case, Max didn’t like the noise. He jumped up from his
position on my lap and began barking at it.
As I stepped out, I saw that the garage held a car and a truck. The car looked like a classic Ford Mustang—a sight that
brought a smile to my face.
Snow came down on us in sheets as I struggled to get the truck door closed. I had Max in one hand and my purse slung over
my shoulder. The driver guy was already walking toward the open garage, carrying my suitcase like it weighed no more than a
scrap of paper.
“This man is going to take care of us,” I whispered to Max.
My dog had huddled even closer to me. Without Max, I’d probably be a big bundle of mess right now. Holding him close
calmed me.
“Excuse the mess,” the guy called back as he squeezed himself and my suitcase between the car and the wall. “I guess you
can tell I run a business.”
I should at least know the guy’s name. “You’re Shane?” I asked.
He paused at a door leading into the house. “Oh yeah. Sorry about that. I’m Shane.”
And then he pushed the door open and stepped through it, leaving me and Max to follow. I looked back over my shoulder.
Should we shut the garage door?
Shane answered that question a few seconds later when he appeared and pressed a button next to the door. The garage door
started closing behind me, which of course brought a fresh round of barks from Max.
“I guess he doesn’t like garage doors,” I said.
Shane paused in the doorway, staring at me. He had a puzzled look on his face, like he couldn’t quite make sense of me.
I couldn’t blame him for that. I’d yet to make sense of myself.
“I’m Meredith,” I said. “And you’ve already met Max.”
 Shane nodded, then disappeared through the door again. The door finished its descent and Max promptly stopped barking.
He returned his attention to his owner.
I smiled at him and said, “Let’s just go with it.”
3
 SHANE

T he power was out. I knew the instant I stepped past the laundry room and into my tiny kitchen. Something just seemed off.
And then my gaze landed on the clock on the microwave. The screen was pitch dark.
“Oh, no!” Meredith said from behind me.
I turned to look at her. I’d left her suitcase by the door, figuring we’d end up taking it back out as soon as it was safe to get
her to Bo’s house.
“It must have just gone out,” I said. “It’s still warm in here.”
Plus, I’d only left a half hour or so ago. Had it even been that long?
“What?” she asked, clearly confused.
“The power,” I said.
Wasn’t it obvious? She’d just said, “Oh, no.” Had I imagined that?
“The power’s out?” she asked.
“What were you talking about?” I asked.
“I left Max’s food and water in my car. It was in the backseat on the floorboard.”
That was certainly an “oh, no” situation.
“If we get stuck here for long, I’ll go grab it,” I said. “I mostly want to get the two of you settled in. In fact, why don’t I get
the fire going, and I’ll head right back out?”
Meredith’s eyes widened. “It’s coming down harder out there.” She glanced toward the window. “I don’t think you should
be out on the road.”
Touched at the concern in her voice, I pulled my phone from my coat pocket. “Let me take a look at the forecast. Maybe it’ll
lighten up in a little while. You can set him down if you want.”
I looked at the dog, who was squirming in her arms. He obviously wanted to explore. I just hoped he wasn’t the type of dog
that urinated on every surface.
“Are you sure?” Meredith asked.
Judging by her expression, Max was definitely the type of dog who would pee on every surface. It was fine, though. A little
soap and water would take care of it.
Within a few minutes, I had fresh logs on the fireplace and a pretty decent flame going. Max might be weird about garage
doors, but he didn’t seem bothered by fire in the slightest. He followed me back and forth as I worked, reminding me what I
missed most about having a furry companion in my life.
“So, you work from home, I guess,” she said.
She’d settled onto the couch, a blanket over her, watching me work. I was trying to keep her from distracting me, but I’d
gotten a glimpse of her body when she took her coat off. Those jeans hugged some serious curves.
Curves I’d like to get my hands on.
“Work from home?” I laughed. “I guess you could say that. I’ve made more than a few trips to people’s houses. If someone
can’t get the car here, I go to there.”
“Wow. I wish we had something like that in Tampa. A mobile mechanic.”
I looked back at her. She was smiling.
“You drove all the way here from Tampa?”
Surely not. That had to be at least a ten-hour drive.
“I can’t fly,” she said.
Of course, she couldn’t. Not with her dog. But Max was an emotional support dog. Couldn’t she take him on an airplane?
Maybe the reason she couldn’t fly had something to do with the reason she had the support dog.
“I don’t mind driving,” Meredith said. “It actually relaxes me. Besides, Emerald was one of my closest friends in school. I
don’t know what I would have done without her. So when she told me she was getting married, I had to come. And then she
asked if Max could be the ring bearer.”
 As if he knew was being talked about, Max ran over to her feet and stood, waiting until she reached down and scooped him
up. She settled him on her lap.
“Is it okay if he’s on the furniture?” she asked. “I can keep him here.”
I nodded. “He can go wherever he wants.”
The more I looked at this woman, the more I wanted to do whatever it took to keep her safe and happy. If it meant her dog
dirtied up my home, I’d just clean up once they were gone. It would be well worth it.
Where had that come from? I normally didn’t want anyone in my home. I lived alone.
Shoving all those thoughts aside, I stood. “You hungry?”
“I had a big breakfast,” she said. “But I could use a glass of water. I know the power’s out, so you can’t open the fridge.”
“If it’s going to be out for long, I’ll just fire up the generator. I’ll have to run out and get some gas, though, so I prefer to
wait at least a little longer if we can.
She nodded, and suddenly something hit me. If I headed out on those roads and got stuck, she’d be here alone with no
electricity and a fire that would eventually peter out.
No, she needed me here, making sure she and Max were safe and warm. Taking care of them.
“Does your dog eat steak?” I asked.
As soon as I said the words, I braced myself for the answer. Max was no doubt on some sort of special dog food. She
probably spent more on her dog’s meals than she did her own. And that would rule out my next offer, which was to fill a bowl
with tap water.
“I have some bottled waters out in the garage,” I blurted before she could answer. “Let me go grab them.”
“Steak would be great.” She smiled, her expression softening. She was relieved that her dog wouldn’t starve. “Not now.
But later. He eats at five. And tap water would be fine.”
My eyebrows arched as I continued out the door. I was impressed that she was open to regular food and tap water. Still, I
found myself heading to the garage for the pack of bottled waters that had been out there since my mom visited last summer. I
drank tap water and ate whatever I could get my hands on. I definitely was not a pampered pooch.
I was turning back toward the door, twenty-four bundled bottled waters in hand, when I saw Meredith standing at the
garage door. Her gaze was firmly fixed on the car closest to her.
“Is that a classic car?”
I nodded as I stopped in front of my blue 1965 Ford Mustang. “I’ve been restoring it as a side project for the past couple of
years. I originally was going to fix it up and sell it. It’s worth a lot more than I paid for it if I can get it in good condition. But
I’ve kind of fallen in love with her.”
When I turned back to Meredith, she wore an amused expression. “Her?”
“I named her Sally,” I said, letting a smile spread over my face. “After the song.”
Her blank expression told me she had no idea what Mustang Sally was. It wasn’t important.
“My grandpa had one of these.” She pulled the door closed behind her and started down the stairs.
I looked around and set the bottles down next to me. As I turned back to face the car, she’d reached the bottom step and was
continuing toward the passenger side of the Mustang.
“I have so many good memories of riding in the back seat.” She moved to the back window and leaned over, peering in. “I
was just four or five, and Grandpa would take me to the movies sometimes.”
“You can get in if you want,” I said. “The door’s unlocked.”
She stood and stared at me, and for a long moment, I was sure she’d decline and head back into the house. But she
surprised me by tugging the door open and climbing in.
I looked around, deciding what to do next. Should I leave her alone with her memories or climb in and listen to her stories?
Before I could make a decision, my body pulled me in that direction. It was like a magnetic force was drawing me toward
her. I wondered if she felt it too.
“I think his seats were red,” she said as soon as I opened the door. “Is that possible?”
I nodded, but I really had no idea. “The original color was white, and I think it went to a cream sort of white the next year.
But he could have changed up the color.”
She ran her hand over the seat back in front of her and my cock sprang to life. I wanted her to run that hand over my bare
skin. I wanted her. It was an attraction that almost knocked me over with its strength.
“Maybe it wasn’t the exact same car,” she said. “It was a classic Ford Mustang. That’s all I knew.”
“We can pull up some pictures of old Fords and see if you recognize anything,” I said.
She lowered her hand to her lap and turned to look at me then. There was a hint of sadness in her expression, and I got the
feeling it was always there. I wanted to make those cornflower blue eyes sparkle and put a permanent smile on her face.
Sheesh. When had I gotten so ridiculously cheesy?
“I’d like that,” she said.
And then her gaze dropped to my mouth and her expression softened. The sadness seemed to lift slightly. She was thinking
about kissing me. She was feeling that attraction too.
I’m not sure who moved first. All I knew was one second she was staring at my mouth and the next she was in my arms as
our lips met in a slow, sweet, soul-searing kiss. I threaded my fingers through her hair at the side of her face, pushing it back as
I gradually deepened the kiss.
When she sighed against my lips, my body took over. I slid my hand down her face to her jaw, then trailed my fingers down
her neck. When I reached her sweater, I hesitated, telling myself to stop, but my fingers moved on their own. A groan escaped
as I followed the steep curve of her breast, moving my fingers over where I could graze her nipple if only this sweater weren’t
so thick.
“Shane,” she said.
My eyes popped open, and I pulled back. The word was not said in the throes of passion. No, she’d said my name more as
an admonition.
But…was that a hint of regret in her tone?
“I’m…not that kind of girl,” she said.
Girl? She was far from a girl. She was all woman.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
I straightened, preparing to flee the car. That’s what I did when situations got a little too serious. I ran.
“No, it’s not that I don’t want to.” She reached out and put a hand on my forearm. Her touch seemed to go straight to my
already aching cock. “I’m twenty-four, but I’m inexperienced.”
Inexperienced? What did that even mean? And why did it make me want her more, not less?
“I didn’t mean to⁠—”
But whatever I’d been about to say cut off as I saw tears in her eyes. She was crying. I’d made her cry by kissing her. That
wasn’t good.
And then she said something that changed everything.
“I’m a virgin.”
4
 MEREDITH

I shouldn’t have told him I was a virgin.

Regret filled me as I stood at the counter in Shane’s kitchen, making a salad. He was cooking steaks for me and Max.
The power had come on while we sat on the sofa, sharing our life stories.
But I was surprised just how little this guy relied on it. No TV or computer. He did have a smartphone, but he’d been quick
to point out it was for business only.
“You should poke around a little while you’re up near the top of the mountain,” Shane said as he made dinner on a stove
that looked like it’d been around since the fifties. “There are guys up there who live off the land. No power, no running water.
They don’t even work for a living. They hunt for food and pull water from nearby streams.”
I stopped chopping tomatoes and turned to look at him. “You can’t be serious.”
“Dead serious.” He shook his head and poked at the steaks. “Most of my buddies came here because the logging crew
needed able-bodied workers. We still like our electricity, though.”
It was hard for me to believe people lived off the grid, but as we enjoyed a dinner of steak and salad, I realized Shane
wasn’t all that far from being like the guys up the mountain. No matter how life-changing that kiss had felt, it wouldn’t work
between us. I just needed to fight the attraction until he deposited me with Emerald tomorrow morning.
But as I lay in the twin guest bed, Max snoring on a blanket on the floor next to me, I couldn’t stop thinking about Shane. I
peeked over at Max. He was a heavy sleeper at night, so I knew all I had to do was sneak from the room and he’d never know I
was gone.
I closed the bedroom door as I tiptoed into the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror. What would happen if I crawled
into bed next to Shane? Would he turn me away, or would he touch me the way I’d been fantasizing about since our kiss earlier
that day? What would have happened in the car if I hadn’t stopped him?
It was time to find out.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I switched the light off in the bathroom and removed the flannel pajamas I’d changed
into before bed. Shane’s bedroom was next to where I was sleeping, which was partly why I’d been tossing and turning.
I stepped into the hallway and stared at Shane’s closed door. Was he having a tough time going to sleep, or had he drifted
off immediately, not haunted at all by the magnetic pull we seemed to have toward each other?
That magnetic pull drew me into his bedroom. I slowly turned the doorknob, my hands trembling and my legs wobbly. The
room was dark, but once my eyes adjusted, I saw movement over on the bed. But there was no more movement on the bed as I
approached. I told myself Shane had gone back to sleep. That made it easier to keep going.
Not until I was standing next to the bed did I realize I was holding my breath, like even the act of breathing might get in the
way. He was definitely asleep. I confirmed that as I pulled the sheets back and climbed in.
His deep breathing stopped abruptly, and he lifted up slightly and looked around. There was enough moonlight streaming
through the window that I could make out his groggy, confused expression.
I didn’t give him time to ask questions. For the first time in my life, I was the seductress, moving my naked body against
his. He didn’t even move at first as I placed my hand on the side of his face and turned him toward me. Then I pressed my
mouth to his. It took only a fraction of a second for him to begin returning that kiss.
And then his hands were on me, pulling me toward him, his naked upper body coming into direct contact with mine. It felt
so good. All of this. His right hand roaming the small of my back, his tongue tangling with mine, my breasts pressed against his
bare, muscular chest. It was beyond what I’d imagined making love to someone could be, and we hadn’t even gotten started yet.
“Meredith?” he asked when he finally pulled away.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “It had better be. Otherwise, you probably should call the police.”
He shook his head. “I must be dreaming.”
“It’s not a dream,” I said. “I want this. I want you.”
How was it possible that I’d known him less than twelve hours, but this felt like something I’d waited my entire life to do?
Not just making love to someone. Making love to him specifically.
 He was the man from all my fantasies—the one I’d never quite been able to put a face to. But every touch, every kiss, was
straight out of one of my fantasies. And I never wanted it to end.
I somehow ended up on my back, his hands moving up the inside of my thigh as he kissed me. I was touching his back, his
shoulders, his arms—all while trying to figure out a way to slide my hands beneath the elastic of those pajama bottoms. But his
movements made it hard to concentrate on anything.
“Part your legs for me, baby,” he said. “I want to see how wet you are.”
I closed my eyes and tried to regain the breath his words had taken away. As I opened myself to him, I felt the cool air
against my pussy, and I knew what he’d find when he slid a finger inside me. I was definitely wet for him.
“Oh God,” he said as his finger explored me. “You feel so good.”
I shook my head, but his eyes weren’t on me. He was looking down at what he was doing, watching his hand where it
cupped me. It was dark enough that I didn’t feel self-conscious about my not-so-perfect body. Right now, I wouldn’t care,
anyway. I was getting so turned on just watching him get turned on by me.
He looked up at me then. “Has anyone ever touched you like this?”
I tried to keep my eyes open, but I couldn’t. They slammed shut of their own accord.
“No.” I threw my head back and gasped. “Never.”
“But you touch yourself sometimes, don’t you?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Sometimes.”
I’d never told anybody that, but I felt comfortable saying it in front of him. I might even be comfortable doing that in front of
him.
“You’ll have to show me sometime,” he said. “But not tonight. Tonight, I show you.”
He stopped touching me, and my body ached for him. But then he was hovering over me, kissing me first on the lips, then
moving his way down my neck, my chest. He stopped to take first one nipple, then the other in his mouth, teasing me, flicking
his tongue over the beaded tip until I writhed beneath him.
I ran my hands through his hair as he continued downward. I knew what he was going to do next. It was part of my fantasy
too. But I had no idea what to expect when he parted my legs and probed the most sensitive part of my body with his tongue.
That made me cry out, not caring if anyone could hear. I stared up at the wooden ceiling rafters, my eyes finally drifting
closed as he moved his tongue over me. Eventually, he slid his finger inside, and the pressure only enhanced the sensation of
his tongue on my clit.
And then I was rising higher…higher…finally crying out. Only as I came down did I realize that I’d been stroking my own
nipples, touching myself like I did when I was alone. He saw it at the same time I realized it, his mouth widening into a smile
as he moved up over me.
But I didn’t want him inside me. Not just yet. There was something I wanted to do first.
5
 SHANE

I still wasn’t entirely sure this wasn’t a dream. It felt real. Especially when Meredith pushed me onto my back, placing my
hands behind my head and telling me to keep them there.
“Gladly,” I said and watched as she grabbed the waistband of my pajama bottoms, taking them and my underwear
down.
Damn, she was hot. Every inch of her. My only wish was that I could flip on the bedside lamp. But thanks to the light
through the window, I could make out those curves, especially the ass I wanted to grab as she eventually rode me. And then
there were those breasts—so full and perky.
I’d taste every inch of her in daylight someday. Maybe tomorrow. If I had my way, she’d never leave this bed.
Meredith folded her legs underneath her, sitting naked midway down the bed. I held my breath as she stared down at me
without touching. Had she ever seen a man naked in person before? If she was a virgin, probably not.
That was when it hit me. I’d be her first. And that sent blood rushing straight to my erection. I wanted her more than I’d
ever wanted anyone or anything in my life.
And I was minutes from having her.
But first, she wanted to explore. And I’d be damned if I was going to stop her.
She looked over at me as she encircled my penis with her hand, running it slowly toward the base, then back toward the tip.
I closed my eyes, remembering how the sunlight played across her face when she was in this position. She’d see from my
expression just how much she was turning me on.
My eyes popped open again when she took me into her mouth. She wasn’t timid about it. But there was nothing timid about
this beautiful woman. She was sexy and vibrant and confident—at least that was how she seemed to me.
She moved down my length, using her tongue, her lips, her hands—threatening to drive me over the edge. Finally, I tugged
on her arm and urged her upward.
“I don’t want to finish like that,” I said. “I want to be inside you.”
She was smiling as she crawled up the bed to join me. “Okay,” she said as our mouths met in another long kiss. That gave
me the opportunity to move my hands over her naked body.
Everything about this felt good. It felt right. It felt like my entire life had led to this. To meeting her. To making love to her.
She reached for me, wrapping her hands around my cock again, this time to guide me. Only as she sat up, nudging me
farther inside her, did I remember she was a virgin. This might hurt for her. But she was in control.
I waited patiently, my hands on her thighs, as she adjusted to my size. Then finally, she looked down at me, and I knew the
painful phase of this was passing. I moved my thumb to her clit, massaging it again and making her moan. When she closed her
eyes and sighed, I knew it wouldn’t be long for me. The more I rubbed her, the faster she moved, and she seemed to get tighter
and wetter with each movement.
“I’m going to come,” I cried out before my orgasm overtook me. Then I was crying out, “Oh God. Yes. Ohhhhhh.”
Those sounds seemed to echo in the quiet room as her movements stilled. I pulled her toward me, giving her a long kiss.
“That was…” She sighed. “Amazing.”
“Yeah?” I looked down at her, then rolled her on her back. “It was. But I’m not done yet.”
Confusion flitted over her features, but then my hand was on her. I was giving her one more orgasm before we drifted off to
sleep.
In seconds, she had her eyes closed again and her head tilted back slightly. It was amazing how quickly I’d gotten to know
her body. It would only get better from here.
Yes, this woman was mine. Maybe she’d always been. We just didn’t know it.
After her second orgasm, I pulled her into my arms, sliding the covers over us. I was a loner, and I’d always assumed I’d
stay that way. But now my previous life seemed empty. I wanted this woman in my life. I wanted to build a home with her.
And for the first time in my life, I even wanted children. All that had changed because of her.
6
 MEREDITH

W e didn’t use protection. That thought popped my eyes open the next morning.
I’d slept straight through the night. The best sleep in years. Having his arms around me had been everything. But
now I was alone in a stranger’s bed with the sudden realization that I could end up pregnant.
“You idiot,” I said to myself, sitting up in the big, empty bed.
Where was he? Had he snuck out on me? No, he couldn’t just leave me here. This was his house. But that didn’t mean he
wouldn’t kick me out.
I shoved the covers back and prepared to get out of bed. My gaze automatically went to the floor beside me, expecting to
see Max curled up in a ball on the rug.
There was no sign of him.
Crap. I closed the guest bedroom door last night when I snuck out to the bathroom, locking him inside.
I jumped to my feet, not caring that I was naked, and rushed from the room. Looking to the left, I found the door wide open
and breathed a sigh of relief. At least he wasn’t locked in there, wondering where his mom had gone.
But how irresponsible of me to leave him locked in there all night. As good as he’d been to me, I owed it to him to look out
for him.
Bacon. I smelled bacon. I rushed into the bathroom and threw on my PJs, not bothering with underwear. I didn’t even stop
in the bathroom to relieve myself. Max was top priority.
He was sitting in the middle of the kitchen, staring up at Shane, who was at the stove again. My dog didn’t even look over
when I walked in. Maybe he was mad at me.
“Max,” I said.
When he saw me, his little tail started wagging even before he got up to rush over to me. I scooped him up, giving him a big
hug.
“I forgot all about him last night,” I said. “He was locked in the bedroom.”
“He was asleep by your side of the bed when I woke up,” Shane said. “I got up in the middle of the night and opened the
door. He didn’t come out then, so he must have wandered into our room at some point early this morning.”
Tears pooled in my eyes as I cuddled Max closer. He was probably starving and definitely had to pee. I didn’t even have
his leash. Why hadn’t I thought to grab his leash?
“We already went out for a walk,” Shane said. “I fed him and gave him water, too, but I thought he might like a little bacon
or maybe some eggs. I don’t know if he’s allowed human food.”
Shane blurred in front of me, but I stared at him anyway. Then I blinked and tears fell.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Where did you get his leash? And his food?”
He turned toward me, a big smile on his face. But that smile crumbled when he took one look at me. He set down the tongs
and turned toward me.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
I shook my head. “I’m a bad dog mom.”
It probably sounded over the top to him, but I loved this dog, and the thought of ever letting him down killed me.
Shane moved the pan off the stove and walked over to me, putting a hand on either arm. Then he looked me in the eye and
said, “I snuck out while the two of you were sleeping and got all the rest of the stuff from your car. The roads are clearing up,
so I’ll call for a tow truck to pull your car out of the ditch. I’d pull it out of the ditch myself but it’s a little too stuck for my
hitch.”
I smiled. “Thank you for all you’ve done for us. And thank you so much for taking care of Max.”
“That little guy loves the snow,” Shane said. “He almost got lost in it. Have you thought about getting him a coat? Or maybe
a sweater?”
“He has a sweater in my suitcase.” I looked down at Max’s little face. “Did Mr. Shane take good care of you?”
“I’m going to take care of both of you,” he said. “If you let me.”
 I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could get a word out, a knocking sound cut through the silence in the cabin,
startling all of us. Shane stepped back to the stove and turned off the burner.
“I’ll be right back to finish this up,” he said.
I stood awkwardly in the kitchen for a second, then followed. I wasn’t wearing underwear, so whoever was visiting this
time of morning would just have to deal with it.
“Bo!” Shane called out.
I let out a sigh of relief. It was just my friend’s fiancé. But when I stepped into the room, two men were standing just inside
the closed front door. I held Max in front of my chest, hoping they wouldn’t notice I wore no bra.
“Do you know Meredith?” Shane asked.
Both guys were handsome with kind faces, but they couldn’t hold a candle to Shane. Not in my view, anyway. I’d never met
Bo before, so I couldn’t say which one was which.
But suddenly, one of the guys stepped forward. “You’re my fiancée’s college friend,” Bo said, smiling. “And this must be
Max.”
“Your ring bearer,” I said with a nod.
“I just stopped by to see if Shane needed a lift up the mountain,” Bo said. “This is Maverick, my buddy, and⁠—”
“His sister’s boyfriend,” Maverick said.
His eyes seemed to light up as he said those words. He looked like a man in love. I couldn’t help but be a little envious of
Bo’s sister.
“I’m going to be driving people up the mountain today,” Bo said. “Shane here has offered to help out.”
“They’ve moved the wedding to tomorrow,” Shane explained to me. “But the roads are still covered. It’s going to be…a
job.”
And unsafe.
My chest clenched at the thought of Shane out there on slick streets, surrounded by steep drop-offs. I closed my eyes and
breathed deeply.
“First, let’s get you and Max packed up,” Shane said. “I want to make sure you’re safe at the wedding cabin before we start
rescuing other people.”
Fifteen minutes later, Shane, Max, and I were alone again. Bo and Maverick had headed down to help out someone who
was stranded near the town grocery store. Max stayed close by my side, as always, watching me with concerned eyes as I
packed up our belongings and set them next to the garage door. Shane loaded them into his truck, then came back in to find Max
and I standing near the stove, where the half-finished bacon still sat.
“Ready?” he asked me. I looked up at him and nodded, but I was holding Max close. Shane added, “It’s going to be okay.”
As I stared back at him, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time. Peace. Sure, my anxiety was still there, but somehow I
believed him when he said it was going to be okay. I just needed to do my deep breathing exercises, and that plus my
medication plus Max would keep the jitters at bay.
“I’ll check in every now and then and let you know I’m okay,” Shane said. He paused there, though, and smiled. “I guess
I’ll need your phone number to do that.”
It hit me then I’d had sex with a man who didn’t have my phone number. He didn’t know my last name, either, and I had no
idea what his was.
We’d definitely have to fix that.
“I’ll program it into your phone while you drive,” I said as I followed him out to his truck and climbed inside.
The roads weren’t as bad as I thought. Or maybe it was that Shane was so good at driving in the snow, it seemed okay. I
would’ve been a nervous wreck, trying to get up this mountain.
“Thank goodness you came along and found me,” I said.
He glanced over at me and turned his attention back to the road. “I’ve been meaning to ask you how you ended up in the
ditch.”
“Panic attack,” I said. “I get them sometimes. Anxiety. I’m on medication and treatment, but yeah…” There was a lot more
to say about my history of anxiety, but at least I’d been officially diagnosed. “And I have Max.”
And now I had Shane. Unless my confession scared him off.
“I thought it was something like that,” he said. “Just know that you can count on me.”
I believed every word of that. He’d take care of me. That didn’t just mean getting me to the top of the mountain safely,
either. I could count on him to be there for me without judging.
It was the kind of love I had from my friend Emerald, which was exactly why I’d driven all the way here for her brother’s
wedding. People who had your back through the good times and bad were hard to find. It was funny that they both lived in this
small mountain town.
Maybe Blackbear Bluff was home.
After she welcomed me with open arms and a huge smile, Emerald, Max, and I spent the afternoon on the couch, nervously
waiting for the men to return. By dinnertime, the place was full of wedding guests that the men had driven up the mountain,
including the caterers, who had to pack their food into the back of Shane’s pickup.
When Shane finally stopped driving for the day, I felt like I could finally breathe again. Everyone was safe and sound,
where they belonged. The snow was melting off. By Monday morning, it would be safe to return home.
“I don’t want to go home,” I told Shane as we snuggled on the couch.
I held a glass of wine, while Shane had Max on his lap. The dog had taken to him already. Maybe it was the steak, but I
decided Max knew a good guy when he saw one.
“Then don’t.” Shane looked over at me. Conversation carried on all around us, but we only had eyes for each other. “Stay
here with me.”
“What? Just move here?”
The wine gave me the courage to have this discussion. I fully expected Shane to laugh it off.
“Yes.” His expression was dead serious. “Don’t leave.”
“What are you two being so secretive about over there?” Emerald asked.
All eyes turned to us.
“Convincing this beautiful woman to move to Blackbear Bluff.” Shane shrugged. “What else?”
At that, Max lifted his head and looked around. His tail wagged three times, then he laid his head back down and promptly
fell asleep.
“I think Max is up for it,” Bo said. “And if you win over the dog, you get the girl.”
I snuggled up to Shane and sipped my wine as the conversation turned to dog talk. Whether I moved here now or a month
from now, one thing was clear. This was my home. Shane was my home. And now that I’d found him, I wasn’t going to let
anything get in the way of us spending the rest of our lives together.
EPILOGUE
 SHANE

T he house was quiet. Almost too quiet.

But I knew better than to question it. We’d have maybe ten or fifteen minutes before the slap of feet on wood floors
outside our door would tell us one of the kids was up. And when one was up, it may as well be all three of them. Parent
mode would be activated.
The sound of my wife breathing in bed next to me was as natural as the other sounds in the house. The occasional creak of
wood, the low hum of the heating and air unit outside our bedroom window, and the whoosh of the wind as it whipped through
the trees behind our house.
It was hard to believe I’d ever lived alone.
I turned to look at Meredith, noting her bare back where the T-shirt had slid up while she slept. I felt the gentle tug of
arousal and touched the crotch of my pajamas. I was sporting a pretty good case of morning wood.
I rolled over slightly until my body was pressed against hers, then ran my hand over her stomach. I didn’t think it was
possible she could get even more beautiful, but knowing this body had carried our three children made me love it even more.
Her mind, her body…everything about her was just perfect.
She stirred as I slid my hand under the waistband of her silky pajama bottoms. The T-shirt and shorts she wore to bed in the
warmer months were sexy enough, but I still missed the pre-kids days when we both slept naked.
Beneath the shorts, she wore panties. My hand slipped inside, my finger going to the warmth between her legs. She wasn’t
wet yet, but I’d quickly fix that. She arched her back a little as my finger made contact with her clit. The move had her ass
sliding along my cock, stroking me and ramping up my erection.
I nudged her hair aside with my chin and kissed her neck, running my tongue over her earlobe. That always made her
squirm.
And then she was fully awake. She sighed and lifted her arm, sliding her hand over my nape as she continued to move
against me.
As predicted, she was wet within seconds, and her movements and breathing told me I was hitting the right spot. But then
she moved away slightly, wiggling under the covers. As my hand was dislodged, I realized what she was doing. She was
slipping her shorts and panties down.
And then she reached behind her and tugged on my pajama bottoms. “Fuck me,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Fuck me from
behind.”
My eyes squeezed shut, and I froze. But then I felt her move. I promptly pushed my pajama bottoms and underwear down,
my cock springing toward her. She shifted next to me, reaching between her legs to help guide me inside her. It took some
adjusting, but when I finally slid into her wet, tight pussy, it was well worth the struggle.
I settled my hand back into place and stroked her clit as I moved my hips, sliding deeper and deeper. And then she was
gasping and gripping my arm as she came. Her warmth and wetness pulsed around me, pushing me over the edge.
I struggled to stay quiet as I came inside her, holding her hips in place until the last of my seed was spent. And then I heard
it, the pitter-patter of little feet.
Meredith pulled away and sat up. “Did you lock the door?”
I shook my head, and she dove under the covers as I hopped out of bed, pulling my pajama bottoms back into place. Our
oldest, Elijah, still struggled with door handles, so that bought us a little time.
When I pulled the door open, Elijah looked up at me, startled. He was still reaching for it as I opened it just far enough for
me to squeeze through. I immediately shut it behind me.
“What’s up, buddy?” I asked, looking around for signs of my four-year-old. If my six-year-old was here, his brother Lucas
wouldn’t be far behind.
“Can I have pancakes?” Elijah asked.
“Pancakes,” I echoed.
My mind was blank. While making love to Meredith was always the best wake-up call, it had a bad habit of scrambling my
thoughts. The mix of morning brain and sex brain made it tough to focus on anything.
“Breakfast,” Elijah said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.
It actually was.
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “You and your brother play quietly for a few minutes and let me get your sister up. Then I’ll
make pancakes and bacon.”
“Bacon!”
Elijah screamed that, then turned and ran toward the bedroom he and Lucas shared. Smiling and shaking my head, I went
straight to our four-month-old’s room.
Amelia was in her crib, which sat in the far corner of the room. I immediately felt at peace, walking toward her. There was
something about a newborn that grounded me.
“I can do that.”
I was in the middle of changing Amelia’s diaper, making faces at her to distract her, when I heard Meredith’s voice behind
me. I looked over my shoulder and was immediately struck by how beautiful she was. She’d tossed a robe on over her PJs, but
her hair was still mussed and she had a slight glow. Maybe it was because she’d just woken up, but I liked to believe I was the
one who put it there.
“I’m almost finished,” I said. “Sit, and I’ll bring her to you.”
We tried to get a routine going, but with one in school and a newborn still nursing, we seemed to constantly be adjusting.
She took a seat in the cushy rocker next to the window as I finished changing Amelia. “Thank you for this morning,” she
said. “That was…better than coffee.”
“I’ll get that brewing for you too,” I said.
I carried Amelia to her mom and helped settle her in for her morning feeding. As I stepped back, I couldn’t help but smile,
especially hearing Max’s paws on the wood outside the bedroom door. We still had Max, but he tended to drift to the kids more
often these days. Meredith called him a traitor—jokingly, of course.
The truth was, sometimes she needed him. Medication and therapy were still essential, but having me around helped too.
Three kids could take a toll, and she often found herself alone here with them while I was in the garage, working ten-hour days.
“Thank you,” Meredith said once Amelia had latched.
I tilted my head to the side. “For what?”
“For all your help,” she said. “For being you. The best day of my life was when I found you.”
“Same,” I said. “I never thought I could love someone this much. You and the kids are my…everything.”
She nodded. “We’ve made quite a home for ourselves, considering where we were in our lives before we met.”
I knew exactly what she meant. As I kissed her on the head and started for the kitchen, Max following at my feet, I felt at
peace.
Sure, both of us had our issues, but together, we got through them. And our family was even stronger as a result.
The next wedding guest arrives to town in Book 3, Trusting the Mountain Man. Get your copy now!
And have you read Dax and Erika’s story? Resisting the Mountain Man is free with newsletter signup.
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flower from this wreath (there are eighteen of them) with verses in
honor of Julie, composed by a dozen and a half of very insipid poets.
This volume was sold some years ago to Madame D’Uzes, a
descendant of the family, when its cost amounted to nearly one
thousand francs per page.
As everything was singular at Rambouillet, so of course was the
wooing of Julie and her knight. It was very “long a-doing,” and we
doubt if in the years of restrained ardor, of fabulous constancy, of
reserve, and sad yet pleasing anguish, the lover ever dared to kiss
the hand of his mistress, or even to speak of marriage, but by a
diplomatic paraphrase.
The goddesses of Rambouillet entertained an eloquent horror of the
gross indelicacy of such unions, for which Molière has whipped them
with a light but cutting scourge. The lover, moreover, was a
Huguenot. What was he to do? Like a true knight he rushed to the
field, was the hero of two brilliant campaigns, and then wooed her as
knight of half-a-dozen new orders, marechal-du-camp, and Governor
of Alsatia. The nymph was still coy. The knight again buckled on his
armor, and in the mêlée at Dettingen was captured by the foe. After
a two months’ detention, he was ransomed by his mother, for two
thousand crowns. He re-entered Rambouillet lieutenant-general of
the armies of France, and he asked for the recompense of his
fourteen years of constancy and patience. Julie was shocked, for
she only thought how brief had been the period of their
acquaintance. At length the marquis made profession of Romanism,
and thereby purchased the double aid of the church and the throne.
The king, the queen, Cardinal Mazarin, and a host of less influential
members, besought her to relent, and the shy beauty at length
reluctantly surrendered. The marriage took place in 1645, and Julie
was then within sight of forty years of age. The young chevaliers and
wits had, you may be sure, much to say thereupon. The elder beaux
esprit looked admiringly; but a world of whispered wickedness went
on among them, nevertheless.
Montausier, for he now was duke and knight of the Holy Ghost,
became the reigning sovereign over the literary circle at Rambouillet,
during the declining years of Julie’s mother. Catherine died in 1665,
after a long retirement, and almost forgotten by the sons of those
whom she once delighted to honor. The most delicate and the most
difficult public employment ever held by the duke, was that of
governor to the dauphin. This office he filled with singular ability. He
selected Bossuet and Huet to instruct the young prince in the
theoretical wisdom of books, but the practical teaching was imparted
by himself. Many a morning saw the governor and his pupil issue
from the gilded gates of Versailles to take a course of popular study
among the cottages and peasantry of the environs.
The heart of the true knight was shattered by the death of Julie in
1671, at the age of sixty-four. He survived her nineteen years. They
were passed in sorrow, but also in continual active usefulness; and
when, at length, in 1690, the grave of his beloved wife opened to
receive him, Flechier pronounced a fitting funeral oration over both.
The daughter and only surviving child of this distinguished pair gave,
with her hand, the lordship of Rambouillet to the Duc d’Uzes,
“Chevalier de l’ordre du Saint Esprit.” The knightly family of
D’Angennes had held it for three centuries. It was in 1706 destined
to become royal. Louis XIV. then purchased it for the Count of
Toulouse, legitimatized son of himself and Madame de Montespan.
This count was knight and Grand Admiral of France, at the age of
five years. In 1704, he had just completed his twenty-fifth year. He is
famous for having encountered the fleet commanded by Rook and
Shovel, after the capture of Gibraltar, and for having what the
cautious Russian generals call, “withdrawn out of range,” when he
found himself on the point of being utterly beaten. He behaved
himself as bravely as any knight could have done; but the
government was not satisfied with him. Pontchartrain, the Minister of
Marine, recalled him, sent him to Rambouillet, and left him there to
shoot rabbits, and like Diocletian, raise cabbages.
His son and successor, who was the great Duke de Penthièvre,
commenced his knighthood early. He was even made Grand Admiral
of France before he knew salt water from fresh. He studied naval
tactics as Uncle Toby and the corporal fought their old battles—
namely, with toy batteries. In the duke’s case, it was, moreover, with
little vessels and small sailors all afloat in a miniature fish-pond,
made to represent, for the nonce, the mighty and boundless deep.
This grand admiral never ventured on the ocean, but he bore himself
chivalrously on the bloody field of Dettingen, and he won
imperishable laurels by his valor at Fontenoy. For such scenes and
their glories, however, the preux chevalier cared but little. Ere the
French Te Deum was sung upon the last-named field, he hastened
back to his happy hearth at home. Rambouillet was then the abiding-
place of all the virtues. There the home-loving knight read the
Scriptures while the duchess sat at his side making garments for the
poor. There, the Chevalier Florian, his secretary and friend,
meditated those graceful rhymes and that harmonious prose, in
which human nature is in pretty masquerade, walking about like
Watteau’s figures, in vizors, brocades, high heels, and farthingales.
When the duchess died in child-birth, of her sixth child, her husband
withdrew to La Trappe where, among other ex-soldiers, he for weeks
prayed and slept upon the bare ground. Five out of his children died
early. Among them was the chivalrous but intemperate Prince de
Lamballe, who died soon after his union with the unhappy princess
who fell a victim to those fierce French revolutionists—who were
ordinarily so amiable, according to M. Louis Blanc, that they were
never so delighted as when they could rescue a human being from
death.
It was by permission of the duke, who refused to sell his house, that
Louis XV. built in the adjacent forest the hunting-lodge of St. Hubert.
An assemblage of kings, courtiers, knights and ladies there met, at
whose doings the good saint would have blushed, could he have
witnessed them. One night the glittering crowd had galloped there for
a carouse, when discovery was made that the materials for supper
had been forgotten, or left behind at Versailles. “Let us go to
Penthièvre!” was the universal cry; but the king looked grave at the
proposition. Hunger and the universal opposition, however,
overcame him. Forth the famished revellers issued, and played a
reveillée on the gates of Rambouillet loud enough to have startled
the seven sleepers. “Penthièvre is in bed!” said one. “He is conning
his breviary!” sneered another. “Gentlemen, he is, probably, at
prayers,” said the king, who, like an Athenian, could applaud the
virtue which he failed to practise. “Let us withdraw,” added the
exemplary royal head of the order of the Holy Ghost. “If we do,”
remarked Madame du Barry, “I shall die of hunger; let us knock
again.” To the storm which now beset the gates, the latter yielded;
and as they swung open, they disclosed the duke, who, girt in a
white apron, and with a ladle in his hand, received his visiters with
the announcement that he was engaged in helping to make soup for
the poor. The monarch and his followers declared that no poor could
be more in need of soup than they were. They accordingly seized
the welcome supply, devoured it with the appetite of those for whom
it was intended, and paid the grave knight who was their host, in the
false coin of pointless jokes. How that host contrasted with his royal
guest, may be seen in the fact told of him, when a poor woman
kissed his hand, and asked a favor as he was passing in a religious
procession. “In order of religion before God,” said he, “I am your
brother. In all other cases, for ever your friend.” The Order of the
Holy Ghost never had a more enlightened member than he.
In 1785 Louis XVI. in some sort compelled him to part with
Rambouillet for sixteen million of francs. He retired to Eu, taking with
him the bodies of the dead he had loved when living. There were
nine of that silent company; and as the Duke passed with them on
his sad and silent way, the clouds wept over them, and the people
crowded the long line of road, paying their homage in honest tears.
Then came that revolutionary deluge which swept from Rambouillet
the head of the order of the Holy Ghost, and the entire chapter with
him; and which dragged from the mead and the dairy the queen and
princesses, whose pastime it was to milk the cows in fancy dresses.
The Duke de Penthièvre died of the Revolution, yet not through
personal violence offered to himself. The murder of his daughter-in-
law, the Princess de Lamballe, was the last fatal stroke; and he died
forgiving her assassins and his own.
During the first Republic there was nothing more warlike at
Rambouillet than the merino flocks which had been introduced by
Louis XVI. for the great benefit of his successors. A scene of some
interest occurred there in the last days of the empire.
On the 27th of March, 1814, the empress Maria Louisa with the King
of Rome in her arms, his silver-gray jacket bearing those ribboned
emblems of chivalry which may still be seen upon it at the Louvre,
sought shelter there, while she awaited the issue of the bloody
struggle which her own father was maintaining against her husband.
The empress passed three days at Rambouillet, solacing her
majestic anguish by angling for carp. Ultimately, the Emperor of
Austria entered the hall where his imperial son-in-law had made so
many Knights of the Legion of Honor, to carry off his daughter and
the disinherited heir. As the three sat that night together before the
wood-fire, the Arch-Duchess Maria-Louisa talked about the teeth of
the ex-king of Rome, while two thousand Austrian soldiers kept
watch about the palace.
The gates had again to be open to a fugitive. On the last of the
“three glorious days” of July a poor, pale, palsied fugitive rushed into
the chateau, obtained, not easily, a glass of water and a crust, and
forthwith hurried on to meet captivity at last. This was the Prince de
Polignac. Two hours after he had left came the old monarch Charles
X., covered with dust, dropping tears like rain, bewildered with past
memories and present realities, and loudly begging for food for the
two “children of France,” the offspring of his favorite son, the Duke
de Berri. In his own palace a king of France was compelled to
surrender his own service of plate, before the village would sell him
bread in return. When refreshed therewith, he had strength to
abdicate in favor of his son, the Duke d’Angoulême, who at once
resigned in favor of his nephew the Duke de Bordeaux; and this
done, the whole party passed by easy stages into an inglorious exile.
With them was extinguished the Order of the Holy Ghost; and never
since that day have the emblematic dove and star been seen on the
breast of any knight in France.
Louis Philippe would fain have appropriated Rambouillet to himself;
but the government assigned it to the nation, and let it to a
phlegmatic German, who had an ambition to sleep on the bed of
kings, and could afford to pay for the gratification of his fancy. It was
on the expiration of his lease that the house and grounds were made
over to a company of speculators, who sadly desecrated fair Julie’s
throne. The present sovereign of France has given it a worthy
occupation. It is now an asylum and a school for the children of the
brave. It began as the cradle of knights; and the orphans of those
who were as brave as any of the chevaliers of old now find a refuge
at the old hearth of the Knights of Amaury.
I can well conclude, that, by this time, my readers may be weary of
foreign scenes and incidents, as we are of real personages. May I
venture then, for the sake of variety, to ask them to accompany me
“to the well-trod stage, anon?” There I will treat, to the best of my
poor ability, of Stage Knights generally; and first, of the greatest of
them all—Sir John Falstaff.
 SIR JOHN FALSTAFF.
“I accept that heart
Which courts my love in most familiar phrase.”— Heywood.

Henry, Earl of Richmond, always creates a favorable impression

on young people who see him, for the first time, without knowing
much about him, previously, at the end of Shakespeare’s tragedy of
Richard the Third. This is a far higher degree of favor than he
merited, for Henry was a very indifferent personage indeed. On the
other hand Sir John Falstaff has had injustice done him by the
actors; and of Shakespeare’s jolly old gentleman they have made
what, down to Macklin’s times, they made of Shylock, a mere
mountebank.
In the very first scene, in the first part of Henry IV., when the Prince
and Sir John appear in company, the knight is, by far, a more
accomplished gentleman than the heir-apparent, for he speaks more
refinedly of phrase, and indeed seldom indulges in scurrilous
epithets, until provoked. Strong language is the result of his infirmity
of nature, not of vicious inclination. Lord Castlereagh was not
accounted the less a gentleman for using, as he could do, very
unsavory phrases occasionally.
The Prince is the first to rail, while Sir John shows his breeding and, I
will add, his reading, by quoting poetry. But, if he is poetical, still
more is he philosophical. How gravely does he beseech Hal to
trouble him no more with vanity! And what a censure does the heavy
philosopher fling at the King’s son, when he tells the latter that he
was hurt to hear the wise remarks of a lord of the council touching
that son’s conduct! The fault of the knight is, that he is easily led
away into evil; a common weakness with good-natured people. It is
only since he held fellowship with the Prince, that the fat follower of
the latter had become knowing in evil, and Heaven help him, little
better, as he says, than one of the wicked. Nay, he has enough of
orthodoxy left to elicit praise, even from the editor of the Record. “O,
if a man were to be saved by merit,” he exclaims, “what hole in hell
were hot enough to hold him!”
He robs on the highway, it will be said. Well, let us not be too ready
to doubt his gentility on that account. There was many a noble cut-
purse in the grand gallery at Versailles, when it was most crowded;
and George Prince of Wales once nearly lost the diamond-hilt of his
sword, at one of his royal mother’s “drawing-rooms.” The offenders
here were but petty-larceny rascals, compared with Falstaff on the
highway. That he defrauded the King’s exchequer is, certainly, not to
be denied. But again, let us not be too hasty to condemn good men
with little foibles. Recollect that St. Francis de Sales very often
cheated at cards.
Robbery on the highway was, after all, only, as I may call it, a rag of
knighthood. Falstaff robbed in good company. It was his vocation. It
was the fashion. It was an aristocratic pastime. Young blood would
have it so; and Sir John was a boy with the boys. In more recent
times, your young noble, of small wit and too ample leisure, flings
stale eggs at unsuspecting citizens, makes a hell of his quarters, if
he be military, and breaks the necks of stage-managers.
Sir John was, doubtless, one of those of whom Gadshill speaks as
doing the robbing profession some grace for mere sport’s sake. “I
am joined,” says Gadshill, “with no foot land-rakers, no long-staff
sixpenny strikers, none of those mad mustachio, purple-hued, malt-
worms, but with nobility, and sanguinity; burgomasters, and great
mongers.” Indeed, it is matter of fact that, there were graver, if not
greater men than these among the noble thieves, “who would, if
matters were looked into, for their own credit-sake, make all whole.”
There was one at least who, for being a highway robber, made none
the worse justice, charged to administer halters to poorer thieves.
But let us return to our old friend. Poor Sir John, I doubt if he would
have gone robbing, even in the Prince’s company, only that he was
bewitched by his Royal Highness’s social qualities. But even then,
while patiently enduring all sorts of hard jokes, he is really the
Mentor of the party, and does not go to rob the travellers without first
seriously reminding the gentlemen of the road, that it was a hanging
matter. He would keep them from wrong, but as they are resolved on
evil commission he accompanies them. He has explained the law,
and he is not too proud to share the profits.
He is brave, too, despite all his detractors! When the Prince and
Poins, in disguise, set upon the gentle robbers, as they are sharing
their booty, Falstaff is the only one who is described as giving “a
blow or two,” before he imitates “the rest,” and runs away. When he
attacked the travellers he was content to fight his man; there were
four to four. And as to the imaginative description of the assault
given by Falstaff, I believe it to have been uttered in joke and gayety
of heart. I have implicit faith in the assertion, that he knew the
disguised parties as well as their mothers did. See how readily he
detects the Prince and Poins, when they are disguised as “drawers”
at the inn in Eastcheap. If Falstaff was right in the latter case, when
he told the Prince that he, Falstaff, was a gentleman, I think, too, he
had as sufficient authority for saying to Hal, “Thou knowest I am as
valiant as Hercules.” I can not believe otherwise of a man whose
taste was so little vitiated that he could at once detect when there
was “lime” in his sack, and who no sooner hears that the state is in
danger, than he suggests to the young Prince that he must to court.
His obesity may be suspected as not being the fruit of much
temperance, but there is a Cardinal Archbishop in England who is
the fattest man in the fifty-two counties, and why may we not
conclude in both cases, that it is as Falstaff says, and that sighing
and grief blow up a man like a bladder?
Then, only consider the reproof which Falstaff addresses to the
Prince, speaking in the character of King to that illustrious
scapegrace. Wisdom more austere, or graver condemnation of
excess, could hardly be uttered by the whole college of cardinals, at
any time. The prince is a mere plagiarist from the knight, and when
he accuses the latter of being given to licentious ways, with what
respectful humility does the old man plead guilty to his years, but
“saving your reverence,” not to the vices which are said to
accompany them?
Not that he is perfect, or would boast of being so. “He has had,” he
says touchingly, “a true faith and a good conscience, but their date is
out.” How ill is he requited by the Prince, in whose service he has
lost these jewels, when his Highness remarks, before setting out to
the field, “I’ll procure this fat rogue a charge of foot, and I know his
death will be a charge of fourscore.” And this is said of one who has
forgotten what the inside of a church is like through keeping this
Prince’s villanous company; till when, he had been “as virtuously
given as a gentleman need be.” What he considers as the requisite
practice of a gentleman, is explained by Falstaff in his low estate,
and not in the spirit which moved him when he “lived well and in
good compass.”
But there is a Nemesis at every man’s shoulder, and if Falstaff was
cavalierly careless enough to run up a score at the Boar’s Head, and
to accept even a present of Holland shirts, which he ungratefully
designates as “filthy dowlas,” the way in which he was dunned must
have been harsh to the feelings of a knight and a gentleman. In
reviewing his gallantries and his extravagances, we must not, in
justice to him, forget that he was a bachelor. If he degraded himself,
he inflicted misery on no Lady Falstaff at home. Heroes have been
buried, with whole nations for mourners, whose offences in this
worse respect have been forgotten. Not that I would apologise for
the knight’s familiarity with either the Hostess or that remarkably nice
young lady, Miss Dorothea Tearsheet. I do not know what the private
life of that Lord Chief Justice may have been who was so very
merciless in his censure upon the knight; but I do know that there
have been luminaries as brilliant who have hidden their lights in very
noisome places and who had not Falstaff’s excuse.
I am as little embarrassed touching Sir John’s character as a soldier,
as I am about his morals. I do not indeed like to hear him
acknowledge that he has “misused the King’s press most damnably,”
or that he has pocketed “three hundred and odd pounds” by illegally
releasing a hundred and fifty men. But at this very day practices
much worse than this are of constant observance in the Russian
service, where officers and officials, whose high-sounding names
“exeunt in off,” rob the Czar daily, and are decorated with the Order
of St. Catherine.
In the field, I maintain that Falstaff is a hero. As for his catechism on
honor, so far from detracting from his reputation, it seems to me to
place him on an equality with that modern English hero who said that
his body trembled at the thought of the perils into which his spirited
soul was about to plunge him. Falstaff did not court death. “God
keep lead out of me,” is his reasonable remark; “I need no more
weight than mine own bowels!” But the man who makes this prayer
and comment was not afraid to encounter death. “I have led my
ragamuffins where they are peppered.” He went then at their head.
That there was hot work in front of him is proved by what follows.
“There’s but three of my hundred and fifty left alive; and they are for
the town’s end, to beg during life!” A hundred and forty-seven men
killed out of a hundred and fifty-one; of the four who survived, three
are illustriously mutilated; while the bold soul who led them on is
alone unscathed! Why, it reminds us of Windham and the Redan. It
is Thermopylæ, with Leonidas surviving to tell his own story.
His discretion is not to be taken as disproving his valor. He fought
Douglas, remember, and did not run away from him. He found the
Scot too much for him, it is true; and quietly dropped down, as if
dead. What then? When the Muscovite general fell back so hurriedly
from Eupatoria, how did he describe the movement? “Having
accomplished,” he said, “all that was expected, the Russians
withdrew out of range.” So, Sir John, with respect to Douglas.
Nor would some Muscovite officers and gentlemen object to another
action of Falstaff’s. The knight it will be remembered with regret,
stabs the body of Hotspur, as the gallant Northumbrian lies dead, or
wounded, upon the field. Now, by this we may see that Russia is not
only some four centuries behind us in civilization. The barbarous act
of Falstaff was committed a score of times over on the field of
Inkerman. Many a gallant, breathing, but helpless English soldier,
received the mortal thrust which they could not parry, from the hands
of the Chevalier Ivan Falstaff, who fought under the doubtful
inspiration of St. Sergius. And, moreover, there were men in
authority there who virtually remarked to these heroes what Prince
Henry does to Sir John,
 “If a lie may do thee grace,
I’ll gild it with the happiest terms I have.”

That our Falstaff bore himself with credit on the field, is made clear in
spite of the incident of Hotspur. I do not pause to point out the
bearing of Morton’s answer, when Northumberland asks him, “Didst
thou come from Shrewsbury?”—“I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble
lord,” is the reply; confessing that he ran from a foe, among whom
Falstaff was a leader: I am more content to rest on the verdict of so
dignified yet unwilling a witness as the Lord Chief Justice. It is quite
conclusive. “Your day’s service at Shrewsbury,” says my lord, “hath a
little gilded over your night’s exploit at Gadshill.” Nothing can be
more satisfactory. The bravery of Falstaff was the talk of the town.
When peace has come, or that Sir John has received permission to
return home, on urgent private affairs, he enters a little into
dissipation, it is true. He is not, however, guilty of such excess as to
materially injure his health; otherwise his page would not have
brought him so satisfactory a message from his doctor. He may,
perhaps, be also open to the charge of being too easily taken by
such white bait as he might find in the muslin of Eastcheap. Heroes,
however, have usually very inflammable hearts. When Nelson was
ashore, he immediately fell in love.
In spite of a trifle of rioting, the overflowing of animal spirits, Falstaff
is governed by the laws of good society. Jokes are fired at him
incessantly, but he takes them with good-humor, and repays them
with interest. “I am not only witty in myself,” he says, “but the cause
that wit is in other men.” Gregoire and La Bruyere expressly define
the great rule of conversation to be that, while you exhibit your own
powers, you should endeavor to elicit and encourage those of your
companions. What they put down as a canon, Sir John had already,
and long before, put in excellent practice. He had wit enough to foil
the Chief Justice, but he left to his lordship ample opportunity to
exhibit his own ability; and then the compliment to the great judicial
dignitary, that he was not yet clean past his youth, although he had
in him some relish of the saltness of time—this, combined with the
benevolent recommendation that his lordship would have a reverend
care of his health, robs the latter personage of any prejudice he
might have entertained against the knight. Indeed, it would be
difficult to conceive how the religiously-minded Lord Chief Justice
could have entertained prejudice against a gallant old gentleman
who had lost his voice with “hollaing” (his men to the charge), “and
singing of anthems.”
Brave! there can be no question touching his bravery. And if he does
really rust a little at home, and impose a little upon the weakness of
the Hostess and other ladies, whom he weekly woos to marry, and
who find his gallantry and saucy promises irresistible; he is ever
ready for service. He does not look for unlimited absence from
scenes of danger. If he led his company of three hundred and a half
to death, and comes out scot-free himself, he is by no means
prepared to hang about town, inactive for the remainder of the
campaign. When he is appointed on perilous enterprise with Prince
John of Lancaster, he simply remarks, with a complacency which is
doubtless warranted by truth, “There is not a dangerous action can
peep out his head, but I am thrust upon it. Well, I can not last for
ever;” and, with this remark buckled on to some satirical wit which he
points at the Lord Chief Justice, he sets forth cheerily on his mission,
the gout in his toe, and in his purse not more than seven groats and
twopence. He has a rouse and a riot at the Boar’s Head before he
starts; but nothing more disreputable seems to have occurred than
one might hear of at a modern club, before some old naval lion is
hiccupped on to deeds of daring. Besides, the knight is no hypocrite;
and he will not be accounted virtuous, like many of his
contemporaries, by “making courtesy and saying nothing.” Not, on
the other hand, that even in his moments of jolly relaxation, he would
be unseemly noisy. He can troll a merry catch, but, as he says to a
vulgarly roystering blade, “Pistol, I would be quiet.” It has been
thought unseemly that he should quarrel with and even roughly
chastise the “ancient” with whom he had been on such very intimate
terms. But such things happen in the best society. At the famous
Reform Club dinner, Sir James gave permission to Sir Charles to go
and make war; but, since that time, Sir Charles, with words, instead
of rapiers, has been poking his iron into the ribs of Sir James, after
the fashion of Falstaff and Pistol.
And so, as I have said, Sir John girds him for the battle. If he did in
his youth, hear the chimes at midnight, in company with Master
Shallow, the lean, but light-living barrister of Clement’s Inn, he did
not waste his vigor. So great indeed is his renown for this, and for
the bravery which accompanies it, that no sooner does the doughty
Sir John Colville of the Dale meet him in single combat, than Colville
at once surrenders. The very idea of such a hero being face to face
with him impels him to give up his sword at once. “I think you are Sir
John Falstaff, and in that thought yield me.” Was ever greater
compliment paid to mortal hero?
Of this achievement Prince John most ungenerously says, that it was
more the effect of Colville’s courtesy than Falstaff’s deserving. But,
as the latter remarks, the young sober-blooded boy of a prince does
not love the knight; and “that’s no marvel,” exclaims Falstaff, “he
drinks no wine.” The teetotaler of those days disparaged the deeds
of a man who increased the sum of his country’s glory. He was like a
sour Anglo-Quaker, sneering down the merit of a Crimean soldier.
We do not, however, go so far as Falstaff in his enthusiasm, when he
exclaims that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack. There is
something in the remark, nevertheless, as there is when Sir John
subsequently says in reference to his wits suffering by coming in dull
contact with obtuse Shallow. “It is certain,” says he, “that either wise
bearing or ignorant carriage is caught, as men take diseases, one of
another; therefore let men take care of their company.” Victor Hugo
has manifestly condescended to plagiarize this sentiment, and has
said in one of his most remarkable works, that “On devient vieux à
force de regarder les vieux.”
And, to come to a conclusion, how unworthily is this gallant soldier,
merry companion, and profound philosopher, treated at last by an old
associate, Prince Hal, when king. Counting on the sacredness of
friendship, Sir John had borrowed from Master Shallow a thousand
pounds. He depended upon being able to repay it out of the new
monarch’s liberality, but when he salutes the sovereign—very
inopportunely, I confess—the latter, with a cold-hearted and
shameless ingratitude, declares that he does not know the never-to-
be-forgotten speaker. King Henry V. does indeed promise—
 “For competence of life, I will allow you;
That lack of moans enforce yon not to evil;”

and departs, after intimating that the knight must not reside within
ten miles of court, and that royal favor will be restored to the
banished man, if merit authorize it.
“Be it your charge, my lord, to see performed the tenor of our word,”
says the King to the Chief Justice; and Falstaff, though sorely
wounded in feelings, is still not without hope. But see what a royal
word, or what this royal word is! The Monarch has no sooner passed
on his way, than the Chief Justice fulfils its meaning, by ordering Sir
John Falstaff and all his company to be close-confined in the Fleet!
The great dignitary does this with as much hurried glee as we may
conjecture Lord Campbell would have had, in rendering the same
service to Miss Agnes Strickland, when the latter accused the judge
of stealing her story of Queen Eleanor of Provence.
However this may be, the royal ingratitude broke the proud heart in
the bosom of Sir John. He took to his bed, and never smiled again.
“The King has killed his heart,” is the bold assertion of Dame Quickly,
at a time when such an assertion might have cost her her liberty, if
not her life. How edifying too was his end! He did not “babble o’
green fields.” Mr. Collier has proved this, to the satisfaction of all
Exeter Hall, who would deem such light talk trifling. But he died
arguing against “the whore of Babylon,” which should make him find
favor even with Dr. Cumming, for it is a proof of the knight’s
Protestantism—and “Would I were with him,” exclaims honest
lieutenant Bardolph, with more earnestness than reverence—“Would
I were with him, wheresome’er he is; either in heaven or in hell.” If
this has a profane ring in it, let us think of the small education and
the hard life of him who uttered it. There was more profanity and
terrible blasphemy to boot, in the assertion of Prince Menschikoff,
after the death of the Czar Nicholas, namely, “that his late august
master might be seen in the skies blessing his armies on their way to
victory!” Decidedly, I prefer Bardolph to Menschikoff, and Falstaff to
both.
I am sorry that Queen Elizabeth had the bad taste to request
Shakespeare to represent “Falstaff in love.” The result is only an
Adelphi farce in five acts; in which the author, after all, has made the
knight far more respectable than that sorry fool, Ford. The “Wives”
themselves are not much stronger in virtue than Dorothea of
Eastcheap, unless Sir John himself was mistaken in them. Of Mrs.
Ford, who holds her husband’s purse-strings, he says, “I can
construe the action of her familiar style,” and he tells us what that
manner was, pretty distinctly. When he writes to Mrs. Page, he
notices a common liking which exists in both, in the words, “You love
sack, and so do I.” The “Wives,” for mere mischief’s sake, we will
say, tempted the gallant old soldier. In their presence he had left off
swearing, praised woman’s modesty, and gave such orderly and
well-behaved reproof to all uncomeliness, that Mrs. Page thought,
perhaps, that drinking sack, and, in company with Mrs. Ford, talking
familiarly with him, would not tempt him to turn gallant toward them.
This consequence did follow; and then the sprightly Wives, in place
of bidding their ridiculous husbands cudgel him, come to the
conclusion that “the best way was to entertain him with hope,” till his
wickedly raised fire should have “melted him in his own grease.” A
dangerous process, ladies, depend upon it!
Then, what a sorry cur is that Master Ford who puts Falstaff upon
the way to seduce his own wife! Had other end come of it than what
did result, is there a jury even in Gotham, that would have awarded
Ford a farthing’s-worth of separation. Falstaff is infinitely more
refined than Ford or Page. Neither of these noodles could have paid
such sparkling compliments as the knight pays to the lady. “Let the
court of France show me such another! I see how thine eyes would
emulate the diamond; thou hast the right-arched bent of the brow,
that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian
admittance!” Why this is a prose Anacreontic! And if the speaker of it
could offend once, he did not merit to be allured again by hope to a
greater punishment than he had endured for his first offence.
For one of the great characteristics of Falstaff is his own sense of
seemliness. When he was nearly drowned by being tossed from the
buck-basket into the river, his prevalent and uneasy idea was, how
disgusting he should look if he were to swell—a mountain of
mummy! The Mantelini of Mr. Dickens borrowed from Falstaff this
aversion to a “demmed damp body.” It is not pleasant!
Once again, Sir John, though he could err, yet he was ashamed of
his offence. Otherwise, would he have confessed, as he did, when
recounting how the mock fairies had tormented him, “I was three or
four times in the thought they were not fairies, but the guiltiness of
my mind, the sudden surprise of my powers drove the grossness of
the foppery into a received belief.” How exquisitely is this said! How
does it raise the knight above the broad farce of most of the other
characters! How infinitely superior is he to the two dolts of husbands
who, after hearing the confession of guilty intention against the honor
of their wives, invite him to spend a jolly evening in company with
themselves and the ladies. And so they—

“Every one go home,

And laugh this sport o’er by a wintry fire,
Sir John and all.”

This may be accounted too gross for probability; but worse than this
is in the memory of our yet surviving fathers. There was, within such
a memory, a case tried before Sir Elijah Impey, in which Talleyrand
was the defendant, against whom a husband brought an action, the
great statesman having robbed him of his wife. The action was
brought to the ordinary issue; and a few weeks subsequently,
plaintiff, defendant, judge, and lady, dined together in the Prince’s
residence at Paris.
Of Stage Falstaffs, Quin, according to all accounts, must have been
the best, provided only that he had a sufficiency of claret in him, and
the house an overflowing audience. Charles Kemble, I verily believe,
must have been the worst of stage Falstaffs. At least, having seen
him in the character, I can conscientiously assert that I can not
imagine a poorer Sir John. He dressed the character well; but as for
its “flavor,” it was as if you had the two oyster-shells, minus the fat
and juicy oyster. What a galaxy of actors have shined or essayed to
shine in this joyous but difficult part! In Charles the Second’s days,
Cartwright and Lacy, by their acting in the first part of Henry IV.,
made Shakespeare popular, when the fashion at Court was against
him. Betterton acted the same part in 1700, at Lincoln’s Inn Fields
and the Haymarket. Four years later, he played the Knight in the
“Merry Wives;” and in 1730, at Drury Lane, he and Mills took the part
alternately, and set dire dissension among the play-goers, as to their
respective merits.
Popular as Betterton was in this character, after he had grown too
stout for younger heroes, his manner of playing it was not original;
and his imitation was at second-hand. Ben Jonson had seen it
played in Dublin by Baker, a stone-mason. He was so pleased with
the representation, that he described the manner of it, on his return
to London, to Betterton, who, docile and modest as usual,
acknowledged that the mason’s conception was better than his own,
and adopted the Irish actor’s manner, accordingly.
Chetwood does not tell us how Baker played, but he shows us how
he studied, namely in the streets, while overlooking the men who
worked under him. “One day, two of his men who were newly come
to him, and were strangers to his habits, observing his countenance,
motion, gesture, and his talking to himself, imagined their master
was mad. Baker, seeing them neglect their work to stare at him, bid
them, in a hasty manner, mind their business. The fellows went to
work again, but still with an eye to their master. The part Baker was
rehearsing was Falstaff; and when he came to the scene where Sir
Walter Blunt was supposed to be lying dead on the stage, gave a
look at one of his new paviors, and with his eye fixed upon him,
muttered loud enough to be heard, ‘Who have we here? Sir Walter
Blunt! There’s honor for you.’ The fellow who was stooping, rose on
the instant, and with the help of his companion, bound poor Baker
hand and foot, and assisted by other people no wiser than
themselves, they carried him home in that condition, with a great
mob at their heels.”
Estcourt’s Falstaff was flat and trifling, yet with a certain
waggishness. That of Harper was droll, but low and coarse. The
Falstaff of Evans seems to have been in the amorous scenes, as
offensive as Dowton in Major Sturgeon; and the humor was
misplaced. Accordingly, when we read in old Anthony Aston, that
“Betterton wanted the waggery of Estcourt, the drollery of Harper,
and the lasciviousness of Jack Evans,” we are disposed to imagine
that his Falstaff was none the worse for this trial of wants.
Throughout the eighteenth century, the character did not lack brilliant
actors. In the first part of Henry IV., Mills played the character, at
Drury, in 1716. Booth had previously played it for one night, in
presence of Queen Anne. Bullock filled Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre,
with it, in 1721. Quin, in 1738, used to play the character in the two
parts of Henry IV. on successive nights, and eight years later his
Falstaff attracted crowds to “the Garden.” Barry played it against him
at Drury, in 1743 and 1747; but Barry was dull and void of impulse as
a school-boy repeating his task. In 1762, the part, at Drury, fell to
Yates, for whom the piece was brought out, with the character of
Hotspur omitted! To give more prominence to our knight, a scene
was left out. The public did not approve of the plan, for in the same
year Love, celebrated by Churchill for his humor, made his first
appearance at Drury, as Sir John, when Holland, the baker of
Chiswick, played Hotspur, with well-bred warmth. I will add, that
though Quin drew immense houses, yet when Harper, some years
previously, played the same part at Drury, with Booth in Hotspur,
Wilks as the Prince, and Cibber as Glendower, the combined
excellence drew as great houses for a much longer period. So that
Harper’s Falstaff, although inferior to Quin’s, was, as was remarked,
more seen, yet less admired by the town. Shuter played it almost too
“jollily” at the Garden, in 1774. But all other Falstaffs were
extinguished for a time, when Henderson, although not physically
qualified for the part, astonished the town with his “old boy of the
castle,” in 1777 at the Haymarket, and delighted them two years
later, at Covent Garden. At the latter house, eight years
subsequently, Ryder played it respectably, to Lewis’s Prince of
Wales; and in 1791, when the Drury Lane company were playing at
the Haymarket, Palmer represented Falstaff, and John Kemble mis-
represented Hotspur. King tried the knight at the same “little house,”
in 1792, but King, clever as he was, was physically incapable of
representing Falstaff, and he soon ceased to pretend to do so. The
next representative was the worst the world had yet seen—namely,
Fawcett, who first attempted it at the Garden, in 1795. Blisset
appeared in it in 1803, and disappeared also. From this time no new
actor tried the Sir John, in the first part of Henry IV., till 1824, when
Charles Kemble made the Ghost of Shakespeare very uneasy, by
executing a part for which he was totally unfit. He persevered,
however, but the success of Elliston in the part, two years later,
settled the respective merits of two performers, to the advantage of
Robert William, as effectually as Grisi showed the town that there
was but one Norma, by playing it the night after the fatal attempt
made on the Druidess, by Jenny Lind.
The succession of actors who represented Falstaff, in the second
part of Henry IV., was as brilliant as that of the line of representatives
above noticed. Ten years after Betterton and Mills, in 1720, we have
Harper, and it is somewhat singular that when Mills resigned Falstaff
to Harper, he took the part of the King. Hulett, two years
subsequently played it at Covent Garden; and, after another two
years, Quin made Drury ecstatic with his fun. He held the part
without a real rival, and fifteen years later, in 1749, he was as
attractive as ever in this portion of the knight’s character, at Covent
Garden. Shuter succeeded him in the part at this theatre, in 1755;
but in 1758, all London, that is the play-goers of London, might be
seen hurrying once more to Drury, to witness lively Woodward’s very
old Falstaff played to Garrick’s King. The Garden can not be said to
have found a superior means of attraction, when Shuter again
represented Sir John, at the Garden, in 1761, on which occasion the
parts of Shallow and Silence were omitted! The object, however, was
to shorten the piece, and the main attraction was in the coronation
pageant, at the conclusion, in honor of the then young King and
Queen, who were well worthy of the honor thus paid to them.
Love and Holland, who played Falstaff and Hotspur, at Drury Lane,
in 1762, played the Knight and the Prince of Wales, at the same
house, two years subsequently. Nine years after this, the Garden
found a Prince in Mrs. Lessingham, Shuter played Falstaff to her, but
the travesty of the former character was only in a slight degree less
incongruous than that made by Mrs. Glover, in the present century,
who once, if not twice, played the fat knight, for her own benefit. For