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William Shakespeare as He Lived: An Historical Tale

by Henry Curling · English · Gutenberg #34796 · 975,230 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: William Shakespeare as He Lived: An Historical Tale

Author: Henry Curling


        
Release date: December 30, 2010 [eBook #34796]
                Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AS HE LIVED: AN HISTORICAL TALE ***




Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Mary Meehan and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
(This file was made using scans of public domain works
from the University of Michigan Digital Libraries.)










                         WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

                             AS HE LIVED.

                         An Historical Tale.

                         BY CAPTAIN CURLING,

      AUTHOR OF "JOHN OF ENGLAND." "SOLDIER OF FORTUNE."


    "Sweet are the uses of adversity,
    Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
    Wears yet a precious jewel in his head."

    _As you Like it._


    _WARWICK_:

    H. T. COOKE & SON, PUBLISHERS, HIGH STREET.

    (COPYRIGHT.)




PREFACE.


The nature of the following work is sufficiently indicated by the title.
In it the most interesting portions of the career of Shakespeare, taken
from the best accredited sources, are brought forward in a pleasing
narrative, the dialogue being in the style of the Elizabethan period.

Throughout the work the writer has endeavoured, amidst a great deal of
stirring incident, and a subordinate tale of much interest, to place the
Poet constantly before the reader, whether on or off the scene. The
story commences when he was about seventeen years of age, and carries
him through some of the eventful "chances" of that glorious epoch which
called forth his own "muse of fire," and caused him to ascend "the
brightest heaven of invention;" and, after showing him the sharp "uses
of adversity," leaves him at the moment of success, whilst Elizabeth and
the entire Court-circle are turned to him whose matchless genius has
just enchanted them.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I. A Forest Scene

CHAPTER II. The Youthful Shakespeare

CHAPTER III. Charlotte Clopton

CHAPTER IV. The Family of the Cloptons

CHAPTER V. A Domestic Party in Elizabeth's Day

CHAPTER VI. A Disagreeable Visitor

CHAPTER VII. Plots and Counterplots

CHAPTER VIII. Stratford-upon-Avon

CHAPTER IX. The Tavern

CHAPTER X. The Churchyard of Stratford-upon-Avon

CHAPTER XI. The Stratford Lawyer

CHAPTER XII. The Sonnet

CHAPTER XIII. Mother and Son

CHAPTER XIV. The Lovers

CHAPTER XV. Charlecote

CHAPTER XVI. The Attack

CHAPTER XVII. The Capture

CHAPTER XVIII. A Revel at Clopton

CHAPTER XIX. The Plague at Stratford

CHAPTER XX. More Trouble at Clopton

CHAPTER XXI. Domestic Affliction

CHAPTER XXII. Bereavement

CHAPTER XXIII. The Vault

CHAPTER XXIV. The Village Fete--Ann Hathaway

CHAPTER XXV. The Twelfth-tide Revelry

CHAPTER XXVI. The Misled Wanderer

CHAPTER XXVII. The Suitor

CHAPTER XXVIII. Shottery Hall

CHAPTER XXIX. The Lovers

CHAPTER XXX. The Adventurers

CHAPTER XXXI. The Benedict

CHAPTER XXXII. The Hostel

CHAPTER XXXIII. The Deer Stealers

CHAPTER XXXIV. The Adventure

CHAPTER XXXV. More Matter for a May Morning

CHAPTER XXXVI. The Lampoon

CHAPTER XXXVII. The Garden

CHAPTER XXXVIII. The Flight to London

CHAPTER XXXIX. Old London

CHAPTER XL. The Poor Player

CHAPTER XLI. The Tavern Revel

CHAPTER XLII. More Strange than True

CHAPTER XLIII. England on the Defensive

CHAPTER XLIV. The Boar's Head, in East Cheap

CHAPTER XLV. The Camp at Tilbury

CHAPTER XLVI. The Invincible Armada

CHAPTER XLVII. The Player at Court

CHAPTER XLVIII. Sir Thomas Lucy in London

CHAPTER XLIX. The Theatre of the Blackfriars

CHAPTER L. The Scenic Hour

CHAPTER LI. The Tavern

CHAPTER LII. The Player in his Lodging

CHAPTER LIII. The Poet and his Patron

CHAPTER LIV. A Consultation

CHAPTER LV. Ill Weaved Ambition

CHAPTER LVI. The Associates

CHAPTER LVII. The Poet and his Friends

CHAPTER LVIII. Stratford and its Neighbourhood

CHAPTER LIX. Kenilworth

CHAPTER LX. The Return

CHAPTER LXI. The Discomfited Scrivener

CHAPTER LXII. Old Friends

CHAPTER LXIII. Which ends this strange eventful History




WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AS HE LIVED,

STRATFORD-UPON-AVON, AND QUEEN ELIZABETH.




CHAPTER I.

A FOREST SCENE.


It was one morning, during the reign of Elizabeth, that a youth, clad in
a grey cloth doublet and hose (the usual costume of the respectable
country tradesman or apprentice in England), took his early morning
stroll in the vicinity of a small town in Warwickshire.

Lovely as is the scenery in almost every part of this beautiful county,
which exhibits, perhaps, the most park-like and truly English picture in
our island, it was (at the period of our story) far more beautiful than
in its present state or cultivated improvement.

The thick and massive foliage of its woods, in Elizabeth's day, were to
be seen in all the luxuriance of their native wildness, unpruned,
unthinned, untouched by the hand of man, representing in their bowery
beauty the wild uncontrolled woodlands of Britain, when waste, and wold,
and swamp, and thicket constituted all.

The fern-clad undulations and forest glades around, too, at this period,
were peopled by the wild and herded deer--those "poor, dappled
fools--the native burghers of the desert city"--which, couched in their
own confines, their antlered heads alone seen in some sequestered spot
amongst the long grass, gave an additional charm to the locality they
haunted, in all the freedom of unmolested range, from park to forest,
and from glade to thicket.

In these bosky bournes and sylvan retreats, unmolested then by the axe
of an encroaching population; nay, almost untrodden, save by the
occasional forester or the fierce outlaw; the gnarled oaks threw their
broad arms over the mossy carpet, giving so deep a shade in many parts,
that the rays of the mid-day sun were almost intercepted, and the silent
forest seemed dark, shadowy, and massive, as when the stately tramp of
the soldiery of Rome sounded beneath its boughs.

As the youth cleared the enclosures in the immediate vicinity of the
town, and brushed the dew from the bladed grass on nearing the more
sylvan scene, the deep tones of the clock, from the old dark tower of
the church, struck the third hour. The sound arrested him; he paused,
and turning, gazed for some moments upon the buildings now seen emerging
from the mint of early morning. At this hour no sign of life--no stir
was to be observed in the town.

    "The cricket sang, and man's o'er-labour'd sense
    Repaired itself by rest."

Although the youth looked upon a scene familiar to his eye (for it was
the place of his birth, and from whence as yet his truant steps had
scarcely measured a score of miles), his capable eye dwelt upon every
point of interest and beauty in the surrounding picture.

He had reached the age when the poetry of life begins to be felt; when
an incipient longing for society of the softer sex, and an anxiety to
look well in the eyes of the fair; to deserve well of woman, and to be
thought a sort of soldier-servant and defender of beauty, is mixed up
with the sterner ambitions of manhood.

Perhaps few forms would have been more likely to captivate the fancy of
the other sex than the figure and face of this youth, as he stood at
gaze in the clear morning air, and contemplated the landscape around. In
shape, he was slightly but elegantly formed, and his well-knit limbs
were seen to advantage in the close-fitting but homely suit he wore.
Added to this figure of a youthful Apollo, was a countenance of genius,
intelligence, and beauty, peculiarly indicative of the mind of the
owner. His costume, we have already said, was homely; it was, indeed,
but one remove from the dress of the common man of the period. A gray
doublet of coarse cloth, edged or guarded with black, and tight-fitting
trunks and hose of the same material; to those were added a common felt
hat with steeple crown, and shoes without rosettes. In his hand he
carried a stout quarter-staff, shod with iron at either end. No costume,
however, could disguise or alter the nobility of look and gallant
bearing of that youth. After regarding the view presented to him in the
clear morning air for some moments, he turned, leaped the last enclosure
which pertained to the suburbs of the town, and pursued his way through
a wild chase or park, avoiding the more thick woods on his right.

How slight and trivial are sometimes the accidents which control the
fate of man!

On setting out from his own home, the stripling had intended to traverse
the woodlands which lay between his native town and Warwick, in order to
keep an appointment he had made with some youthful associates of the
latter place--some wild and reckless young men with whom he had lately
become acquainted. The church clock, however, whilst it informed him he
had anticipated the hour, determined him to change his intention of
going straight to the trysting-place, and he turned his steps in a
different direction. He therefore left the deep woodlands on his right,
and sought the enclosures of Clopton Hall.

This change of purpose, in all probability, saved the life of the
handsome lad. As he turned from the woodlands on his right, and sought
the fern-clad chase and plantations in which Clopton Hall is embosomed,
a tall, fierce-looking man, clad in the well-worn suit of a ranger or
forester, stepped from the thick cover. As he did so, the forester
lowered a cross-bow, with which he had been taking a steady aim at the
stripling, from his shoulder, and stood and watched him till he
disappeared.

"Now the red pestilence strike him," said the man. "He has again escaped
me. But an I give him not the death of a fat buck ere many days are over
his head, may my bow-string be the halter that hangs me."

"Nay, comrade," said a second forester, at that moment coming forward,
"believe me, 'tis better as it is; thou must e'en drop this business,
and satisfy thy revenge by a less matter than murder. I half suspected
thy intent, and, therefore, have I followed thee. Come," he continued,
"thou must, I say, forgive the affront this lad has put upon thee."

"May the fiend take me then!" returned the ruffian.

"Nay, thou art most likely the property of St. Nicholas methinks.
Whatsoever thou dost," said the other, "certainly he will catch thee by
the back if thou should harm this youngster."

"Why, look ye," said his fellow. "Have I not reason for what I do? The
varlet (who I shrewdly suspect hath an eye upon the deer) constantly
haunts our woods. Not a nook, not a secluded corner, not a thicket but
he knows of, and explores. At all hours of the day, and even at night,
have I caught sight of him wandering alone. Sometimes I have seen him,
lying along, book in hand, under a huge oak, in Fullbrook wood; at other
times I have watched him as he stood in the twilight beside the brook,
which flows through Charlecote Park. As often as I have tried to gain
speech with and warn him from our haunts, he has been ware of me;
plunging into the covert (nimble as a stag), so escaped.

"Once, however, I came warily behind him while he stood watching the
deer as they swept along a glade in Fullbrook; and heard him repeating
words which rivetted me to the spot, nay almost took from me the power
of accosting him. Not, however, to be outworded by a boy, I pounced upon
him."

"Go to!" said the other laughing, "then you collared him, I suppose, and
took him off to the head-ranger to give an account of his trespass.
Was't not so! Eh?"

"You shall hear," returned the ranger. "At first I felt too much respect
to rebuke him. There was something in his look I could not away with. He
seemed somewhat angered too at being molested and caught by surprise;
and there was that in his eye which could look down a lion, methought.
After awhile, however, I gave him some of my mind, threatened to report
his trespass to the knight our master, and to give him a taste of the
stocks, or the cage."

"Good," said his fellow, laughing. "You said well!"

"Nay, 'twas not so good either, as it turned out," said the ranger.

"How so?" inquired his comrade.

"Why, he took my rebuke mildly at first, merely saying he sought not to
molest the game, but only to enjoy the liberty, freedom, and leisure of
the wild woods."

"Well," interrupted the other, "between ourselves, that seems natural
enough. But, an all the lads in the country were to do the same, they
would soon drive the deer from their haunts, and render our trade a poor
one."

"So I told him; and that I should not be so easy the next time I caught
him straying in our woods. Nay, that I would then, indeed, cudgel him
like a dog."

"Ha! ha! and how took he that threat?"

"Mass! I would you could have seen how he took it," said the irate
ranger, "for I shall never forget the change it wrought. He looked at me
with an eye of fire, reared himself up like a startled steed, and railed
on me in such terms as I think never man either heard or spoke before.
Nay, an I had not known he was the son of a trader here in Stratford, I
had taken him for the heir of some grandee, for never heard I before
such a tongue, or such words of fire."

"Go to!" said the other; "and how answered ye that?"

"At first I felt awed; but, when he dared me but to raise a finger in
the way of assault, and stirred my wrath so, that I laid hands on him,
he struck me to the earth; when I rose, and again attacked him, despite
my skill at quarter-staff, he cudgelled me to his heart's content."

"What, yonder lad?"

"Ay, yonder boy! His strength and skill were so great that, had I not
cried _peccavi_, I had died under his blows."

"And for this you are resolved to shoot him!"

"I am! I cannot forget the disgrace of his quarter-staff. My very bones
ache now at the bare remembrance."

"Aye, but thou must forget it, comrade," said the other; "for to shoot
him, look ye, might get the rangers all into trouble. He hath, you see,
gone out of our bounds this morning; but let us follow, and if we find
him we will both beat him. As far as that goes, I am your man. 'Tis
allowable, and in the way of business. But for shooting the lad--fie
on't! 'tis cowardly and dangerous. Ever while you live, forbear your
bullet on a defenceless person."

"Well, be it so!" said his fellow. "I agree. He hath had the best of me,
for once in his life. But, at least, will I be revenged:--blow for
blow."

"Hath he good friends, said ye?"

"None of note."

"What then is his father?"

"The wool-comber who dwells in Henley Street."

"Enough! Now let us but catch him, and by 'r lady, we'll beat him so
that he shall scarce disport his curiosity amongst our woods again."

"Nay, but if we kill him?" said the other, with a sneer.

"Then must our master bear us out; we are hired to keep off all lurking
knaves. By fair means or foul, it must be done. An we kill him, we'll
e'en knock over a buck, and lay it to's charge. Swear we caught him
red-handed in the fact, and there an end."




CHAPTER II.

THE YOUTHFUL SHAKESPEARE.


About a couple of hours after the above conversation between the two
rangers, the subject of it might have been seen lying along, "like a
dropt acorn," book in hand, under cover of the thick belt of plantation
skirting the grounds of Clopton Hall. Occasionally, his gaze would turn
upon the huge twisted chimneys and casements of the building, just now
beginning to show symptoms of life. The thin blue smoke mounted into the
clear air, and the diamond panes of the windows glittered in the morning
sun. At this period the sports of the field formed the almost daily
avocation of the country gentlemen in England. Men rose with the sun,
and with hawk and hound and steed commenced the day at once. Scarce was
the substantial breakfast thought of till it had been earned in the free
air, amidst the woods and glades. Accordingly, as our student lay perdue
in the covert, he beheld the falconer of the household of Clopton with
the ready hawk, the grooms with the caparisoned steeds, the coupled
hounds, and all the paraphernalia of the field.

The family of the Cloptons were not altogether unknown to the youth, and
the hall being only a mile from the town, Sir Hugh was a sort of patron
of Stratford, and in constant intercourse with the inhabitants.

As his party had oft-times ridden through the streets, our hero had
scarce failed to remark amongst the cavalcade a beautiful female of some
seventeen years of age. This fair vision, who with hawk on hand, looked
some nymph or goddess of the chase, was, indeed, the only daughter of
Sir Hugh Clopton.

To one of the ardent and poetic soul of our young friend, the mere
passing glance of so exquisite a creature as Charlotte Clopton had
suggested more than one sonnet descriptive of her beauty. Yes, the
glance of the lowly poet from beneath the pent-house which constituted
the shop of his father, had called forth verses which, even at this
early period of his life, surpassed all that ever had been penned; and
Charlotte Clopton first caused him to write a stanza in praise of
beauty. At this early period of his life, too, his fine mind teemed with
the germs of those thoughts which, in afterdays, brought forth so many
lovely flowers. The impression of his own passionate feelings in youth
furnished him with the ideas from which to pourtray the exquisitely
tender scenes of his after-life.

To a youth of spirit, the sight of preparation for the sports of the
field was full of excitement. Most men love the chase, but mostly those
of a bold determined courage.

Participation in the sports of people of condition was, however, denied
to the lad, as his condition in life barred him from aught beside the
sight of others so engaged. His capacious mind conceived, however, at a
glance, all the mysteries of wood-craft, and his truant disposition
leading him to become a frequent trespasser, the haunts and habits of
the wild denizens of the woods were familiar to him.

If, therefore, he was debarred from following the chase himself, he
loved to see the hunt sweep by--

    "When the skies, the fountains, every region near,
    Seemed all one mutual cry."

In addition to this, there was an insatiable craving after information
of every kind. He had been educated at the Free School of his native
town, and had far outstripped all competitors in such lore as the
academy afforded, and he now perused every book he could procure, making
himself master of the subjects they treated of with wonderful facility.
He was drinking in knowledge (if we may so term it) wherever it could be
reached; whilst, in his truant hours, no shrub, no herb, no plant in
nature escaped his piercing ken.

His exquisite imagination, unfettered and free as the air he breathed in
the lovely scenery of his native country, created worlds of fancy, and
peopled them with beings which only himself could have conceived. In the
solitude of the deep woods he loved to dream away the hours.

    "On hill or dale, forest or mead,
    By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,"

it was his wont to imagine the elfin crew, as they "danced their
ringlets to the whistling wind."

It was observed, too, amongst his youthful associates, that he seemed to
know things by intuition. Those who were brought up to the different
mechanical trades in the town or neighbourhood found in him a master of
the craft at which they had worked. "Whence comes this knowledge," they
inquired of each other, "and where hath he found time to pick it up?"
"Body o' me," his father would oft-times say, "but where hath our
William learnt all this lore? Thus worded too! Master Cramboy, of the
Free School, albeit he comes here continually to supper, and uses
monstrous learned words in his discourse, never tells us of such things
as this lad discourses to us." Neither was all this superfluous
knowledge, "ill inhabited like Jove in a thatched house." He was already
a poet, turned things to shape, and gave to airy nothing

    "A local habitation and a name."




CHAPTER III.

CHARLOTTE CLOPTON.


Clopton Hall was situated in a sort of wild chase, or park, in which
hundreds of broad, short-stemmed oaks grew at distant intervals; and
through this chase a deep trench had been cut in former days by the
legions of Rome, the thick plantation which formed the belt immediately
around the house being just in rear of the Roman ditch.

The hawking party, on this morning, as they gradually assembled and
mounted their steeds in the court of the mansion, rode through the
gate-house, along the avenue and into the chase. Here they breathed
their coursers and careered about till Sir Hugh had mustered the
different servitors and attendants appertaining to a matter of so much
moment as his morning diversion, and was ready to go forth.

As they did so, the youth noticed the lady he had before seen, and whose
exquisite form had made some slight impression upon his imagination.
Nothing could be more skilful than the way in which she managed her
horse, he thought--nothing more lovely and graceful than she altogether
appeared. The steed she rode was a magnificent animal, and one which
none but a most perfect horsewoman could have backed; and as he plunged,
and "yerked out his heels," he shewed his delight at being in the free
air, and proved "the metal of his pasture."

It was a fair sight to behold one so delicately formed as that lady
restrain the ferocity, and, by her noble horsemanship, reduce to
subjection the wild spirit of that courser; and so thought the studious
boy in the gray jerkin.

Well, however, as she had hitherto managed the animal, now that it was
growing even more excited by the number of horses around, it seemed
every instant becoming more and more unruly. It was in vain that a tall
handsome cavalier, who had kept an anxious eye for some time upon the
movements of her horse, now spurred his own steed beside the lady, and
kept near her bridle-rein. The brute reared, and stood for a few
moments, striking wildly with his fore feet. After a while, however, and
whilst all sat in helpless alarm, the lady still keeping her seat, the
steed recovered himself, plunged forwards, and bolted from the party.

Few situations could be more perilous than that which Charlotte Clopton
now found herself in; few more distressing to the spectators to witness;
since to attempt aid is oft-times to hasten the catastrophe.

To follow a runaway steed, in the hope of overtaking it is, perhaps, one
of the worst plans that can be adopted, as the very companionship of the
pursuing horse is sure to urge on and accelerate the pace of the flyer.

Yet this course the tall dark cavalier (who seemed Charlotte Clopton's
principal esquire) unhappily adopted.

As he beheld the maddened horse tearing across the park, swerving
amongst the oak trees, and threatening every instant to dash out the
brains of the rider amongst the branches, he set spurs to his own
courser, and galloped after her. It was in vain that Sir Hugh shouted to
him to return. In vain he roared and railed, and called to him that he
would murder his child by such folly.

The lady, however, kept her seat. She managed even to guide her steed
into the more open part of the chase. For (like the mariner in the
storm) she well knew that whilst the tempest roars loudest, the open sea
gives the vessel the better chance.

The sound of the horse following, however, totally ruined her plan, and
rendered her own steed more determined. He flung aside, turned from the
direction his rider had coaxed him into, and galloped towards the spot
where our hero was standing amidst the trees. It was by no means
difficult to conjecture that destruction to the beautiful creature, thus
borne along as if on one of the "couriers of the air," was almost
inevitable.

The next minute, as the youth of the grey doublet, in a state of
breathless anxiety, stood and watched this race, himself concealed in
the thick foliage, the horse (like some wild deer seeking cover) plunged
headlong into the Roman ditch.

The entrenchment was of considerable depth, so that both steed and
rider, for the moment, disappeared below the grassy ridge. It was,
however, but for a moment: the next, the maddened steed sprung up the
opposite bank.

The rider was, however, no longer on his back: she had been cast
headlong from the saddle, and our hero saw, with terror, that her
riding-gear was entangled on the saddle, and that she was being dragged
along the ground by its side.

But few minutes of exposure to such a situation, and that sweet face had
been spurned out of the form of humanity, and her delicate limbs broken,
torn, and lacerated. But the youth (although he saw at once that it
would be vain to attempt to arrest the powerful brute by seizing the
bridle) in a moment resolved upon a bolder measure. As the horse neared
him, he rushed from his concealment and (ere it could swerve from his
reach), with the full swing of his heavy quarter-staff, struck the
animal full upon its forehead, and with the iron at the extremity of his
weapon, fractured its skull.

So truly and well was the blow delivered, that the steed fell as if
struck by a butcher's pole-axe, and the next instant was a quivering
carcase upon the grass.

In another moment the achiever of this deed had unsheathed the sharp
dagger he wore at his waist-belt, cut away the entangled garment of the
lady from the saddle, and was kneeling beside her insensible form. As he
did so, he felt that he could have spent hours in gazing upon those
lovely features.

Meanwhile, the cavalier who had followed (but who reined up his horse
when he observed the steed of the lady dash down the slope, and then
remained gazing on all that followed in a state of utter helplessness),
as soon as he beheld the extraordinary manner in which she had been
succoured, again set spurs to his horse.

Dashing recklessly across the Roman trench, he galloped to the spot, and
throwing himself from the saddle, snatched the lady from the supporting
arms of her rescuer.

There was a retiring diffidence, an innate modesty about the youth who
had aided the lady, which kept him from intrusion. Nevertheless, he felt
hurt at the manner in which the handsome cavalier had snatched her from
his arms. His indomitable spirit prompted him almost to thrust back that
officious friend, and like Valentine, exclaim--

    "Thurio, give place, or else embrace thy death;
    I dare thee but to look upon my love!"

The next moment, however, remembrance of his own condition, and the
station in life of her he had saved, flashed across his brain. He drew a
pace or two back, and recollected how far removed he was from her he had
so promptly succoured. As for the attendant cavalier, he seemed to see
nothing but the still insensible form he hung over. "Oh! thank heaven.
Oh! thank heaven, she breathes," he said wildly, "she is not dead--speak
to me, Charlotte--speak but one word to your poor cousin, if but to
assure him of your safety."

"I think she is recovering, fair sir," said the youth, again
approaching. "See, she opens her eyes."

"She does--she does!" said the cavalier, as he raised her in his arms.
"I would we had a few drops of water to sprinkle in her face; 'twould do
much towards hastening her recovery."

"That shall she soon have," said the youth; and darting off, he hastened
towards a rivulet, which, brawling along on the other side of the
plantation, ran through the marsh land beyond, and emptied itself into
the Avon.

Taking off his high-crowned hat, he dipped it in the stream, and
returned as speedily. As he did so he observed that Sir Hugh Clopton,
and such of his party as were mounted, had now reached the spot; whilst
the fair Charlotte, having regained her senses, was clasped in her fond
father's arms.

Handing the water to one of the attendants, he again drew back, and
leaning upon his quarter-staff, stood regarding the party unnoticed.

"Now praise be to heaven for this mercy," said Sir Hugh. "In my pride
and joy of thee, my Charlotte, I bred yonder steed for thy especial use.
I thought to see thee mounted as no other damsel in Warwickshire, and
see the result. Ha, by my halidame, I swear to thee, that had not the
brute perished in his own wilfulness I had killed him with this hand."

"Nay, blame not my poor Fairy," said the lady; "he did but follow the
bent of his joyous spirit, when he found himself in the fresh pasture.
'Twas thy timely succour, coz," she said, turning to the tall cavalier
beside her, "which I suspect saved me when I fell."

"By my troth then, nephew," said the old knight, grasping the youth's
hand, "'twas well done of thee, and thou hast redeemed thy first fault
in following the runaway horse."

"Alas, uncle," said the cavalier, "I fear me I have redeemed no fault,
neither deserve I any praise. I saw my fair cousin cast headlong to the
earth, and then dragged beneath the heels of yonder horse. No mortal
help, it appeared, could avail her. I felt the blood rush to my brain; I
was about to fall from my saddle, when lo, a lad stepped from beside the
trunk of yonder oak, I heard a heavy crashing blow, I saw Fairy fall as
if pierced by a bullet in the brain, and I found thee, Charlotte, saved.
And that reminds me," continued the cavalier, looking round, "he who did
this gallant deed was this moment by my side."

"Ha, say'st thou, Walter," said the burly knight, "where, then, be this
lad whom we have not even thanked for his service? Stand back, my
masters."

As Sir Hugh spoke the attendants fell back, and discovered the graceful
figure of the youth in the grey doublet, as he leant beside the tree.
The old knight immediately stepped up, and grasping the youth by the
hand, led him into the circle, whilst the young cavalier was more fully
describing to the lady the bold and instantaneous manner in which she
had been rescued.

The youth sank on one knee, and taking the lady's hand, pressed it to
his lips. "Believe me, lady," he said, "the delight I experience in
serving one so fair and exquisite, a thousand times o'erpays the duty."

"Why, gad a mercy," said the old knight, "thou art a high-flown
champion, methinks. Nevertheless, lad, we are indebted to thee in more
than we can either dilate on, or thou listen to with patience fasting.
Let us return to the house, my masters all.

"Come Sir Knight of the quarter-staff," he continued, "'fore gad, we'll
not part with thee till we have learnt how to do thee good service.

"Yet stay," he said, as he was preparing to mount, and whilst steadily
regarding the youth, "art not of the town here? Have I not seen thy
goodly visage somewhere in Stratford? Troth have I. Why man, thou art
the son of my respected neighbour, the wool-comber in Henley
Street--John Shakespeare."

"His eldest son, an it so please ye," said the youth, blushing.

"'Fore Heaven, and so thou art!" said Sir Hugh. "And what, good
Philip?--is not thy name Philip?"

"William," said the youth.

"And what good wind, then, good William Shakespeare, hath blown thee so
opportunely this morning to our neighbourhood?"

"Marry, the same wind, good Sir Hugh," said a tall, dark-looking man,
dressed in the habiliments of a forester, and accompanied by a companion
quite as ill-favoured as himself, and who at this moment thrust himself
into the circle: "the same ill wind, Sir Hugh, that makes him haunt
every wood and dell in the county."

This interruption somewhat startled the party. Sir Hugh turned and
looked at him with surprise, whilst the object of the remark of the
forester in an instant confronted the man. "Thou art an insolent
caitiff," he said, "thus to speak of one of whom thou knowest nothing."

"An I know nothing of thee," said the forester contemptuously, "'tis
more than my comrade here can testify. By the same token, thou has
stolen upon his forest-walk, 'will he, nill he,' and beaten him on his
own beat, as it were, and so put him to shame."

"And I am as like to do the same by thee with the like provocation,"
returned young Shakespeare. "Thy comrade laid hands upon me, and
dishonoured me by a blow. For the which," he continued, significantly,
"_I beat him._"

"And for which," returned the forester, "we have followed thee hither;
and, time and opportunity serving, will return the beating with
interest. Thou art warned, so look to thyself, and keep from our woods
in future."

"Gramercy," said Sir Hugh, now interrupting the dispute, "but what saucy
companions are these?"

"We are outlying keepers of Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote, Sir Hugh,"
said the man, doffing his hat, and making a leg.

"Outlying, I think, by'r Lady," said Sir Hugh, "in every sense of the
word. Thou hast railed on thyself, Sir Ranger, in accusing this youth of
the offence of trespass, since thou art even now thyself trespassing
here, and putting an affront upon a youth whom it is our pleasure to
hold in good esteem. Begone, lest I give my people a hint to cudgel thee
for thy presumption."

"Nay, then our master shall hear of it," said the keeper; "an thou
encouragest those who lurch upon his grounds, the sword must settle it."

"'Tis with thy master I _will_ settle it, thou arrant knave," said Sir
Hugh; "I talk not with such caitiffs."

"And yet dost thou take up with yonder son of a trader in Stratford
town," said the fellow, with a sneer. "'Want of company,' saith the
proverb. Eh?"

"Hark ye, sirrah!" said young Shakespeare (like lightning seizing the
keeper by the green frock, and forcing him up to the dead horse),
"trader or noble, I warn thee to put no further affront upon me before
this fair company; for, by the hand that brained yon steed, I can as
easily teach thee as awful a lesson. Begone!" he continued. "I am alike
ready to meet thee on thine own or other grounds, singly or together,
with quarter-staff, or rapier and target."

The man looked cowed, he glanced towards his comrade, and both
disappeared.




CHAPTER IV.

THE FAMILY OF THE CLOPTONS.


To Charlotte Clopton the introduction of the stranger youth, the
relation her cousin gave of his opportune appearance, and the ready
manner in which he had rescued her, seemed like some dream.

Indeed, under circumstances such as she now for the first time beheld
the youthful poet, he was scarcely to be regarded, we opine, by a lady's
eye with impunity.

Rendered insensible, as we have seen, by her severe fall, on recovery
she found herself almost miraculously saved from a dreadful death.
Whilst he who had rescued her, appeared to have come to her assistance
"like some descended god."

"Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?" The heart of Charlotte
was from that moment hopelessly, irrecoverably, lost.

The family of the Cloptons was of ancient descent. Sir Hugh was a
widower, having no other offspring but the daughter we have already
introduced to our readers. Of suitors doubtless the fair Charlotte might
have had plenty and to spare; for, when broad lands are coupled with
exceeding beauty,

    "From the four corners of the earth they come
    To kiss the shrine."

Sir Hugh had, however, made election for his daughter, of one who had
been her companion from childhood, a cousin of her own, Walter Arderne.
This young man, who was now about two and twenty years of age,
absolutely doated on his affianced bride. His fortune was ample, and the
woods of Arderne could be seen from the grounds of Clopton. Added to
this he was extremely handsome, of a most amiable and generous
disposition, brave as the steel he wore, and "complete in all good grace
to grace a gentleman."

And yet withal, although Charlotte loved him as a brother, esteemed him
as a friend, and had been taught to regard him as her future husband, to
entertain any more tender feelings towards him she found impossible.

Still, Walter Arderne being thus the constant companion, the affianced
husband of Charlotte, although numerous other cavaliers saw, and seeing,
admired, their brief bow was soon made. They saw--they were smitten by
the blind bow-boy--but they felt that the prize was appropriated
worthily and withdrew.

Few men, indeed, were more worthy of a lady's eye than Walter Arderne.
Gentle, generous, and frank, as we have before described him--rich and
handsome withal--it seems scarcely possible that his fair cousin could
fail in returning the strong love he felt for her. Yet so it was, and
whether this love "chosen by another's eye" was distasteful to her, or
that she thought the near relationship any bar to a more tender feeling,
it is certain the very thought of her betrothment was disagreeable.
Still Walter had been her friend, her companion, and her champion from
childhood's hour, and under his fostering care and tuition she had
become a sort of Dian of the woods and groves. Dearly did she love the
bounding steed and the chase: the wild, the wold, the hawk, and the free
air.

Her father's wishes also were law to her, and as she found it would be a
terrible disappointment to him were she to own her dislike to a marriage
with her cousin, she had suffered the engagement to remain unchallenged.

For centuries the Cloptons had seemed a doomed race; as if some ban was
upon them they had been strangely unlucky by flood and field. Gentle by
birth, noble in spirit, and in the enjoyment of all the world could
give, they seemed doomed to be unfortunate. There was even a melancholy
about the old hall itself consequent upon the mishaps and disasters that
appeared the hereditary portion of the family. The sons were brave,
their banner ever in the van, but they fell early in the fight. The
daughters were chaste as they were beautiful, but an early grave had
almost always closed over them. Nay, the villagers called the old
manor-house the house of mourning, so invariably had most of its
numerous occupants been swept off. An old legend (they affirmed)
proclaimed this near extinction of the line of Clopton, and that the
hall would be unlucky whilst their race continued its owners.

The brave old knight, gentle and even-tempered as he was, and whom on
ordinary provocation it was difficult to anger, was peculiarly sensitive
on this subject. Any allusion to the wild legend from a servitor, or
rustic on his estate, would be sure to be followed by displeasure or
dismissal; whilst mention of it from one in his own rank would have been
considered equivalent to an invitation to the dark walk at the end of
the pleasance, armed with rapier and dagger.

Sir Hugh had beheld his children fade away, apparently of hereditary
disease, one after another in their early youth; all except the
beautiful Charlotte, the pledge of a second marriage, and whose mother
had died soon after giving birth to this their only child, and he was in
consequence tremblingly alive to the slightest alarm of accident or
illness. It was under such circumstances that Sir Hugh, in accepting the
guardianship of his nephew, had learned to look upon the well-favoured
Walter almost with the eye of a parent, and had set his heart upon a
marriage between him and his lovely child.

Under such circumstances, too, had young Shakespeare performed the piece
of service we have described,--a service beyond reward (as the old
knight worded it), beyond aught he had to bestow; and it was under such
circumstances that the youth became an occasional visitor at Clopton
Hall, where he was admitted on an equality with the inmates, and
received in a manner perhaps no other circumstances would have been
likely to lead to.

The line drawn between persons of different condition in life was then
more strictly kept, and more accurately defined than in our own day. But
the good sense of Sir Hugh led him to appreciate superior attainments
wherever they were to be found. The ignorance of youth proceeded, he
thought, from idleness; the continuance of ignorance in manhood from
pride--the pride which is less ashamed of being ignorant than of seeking
instruction. At Clopton, therefore, men of worth were received, even
though of low estate.




CHAPTER V.

A DOMESTIC PARTY IN ELIZABETH'S DAY.


On the evening of the day on which the accident had happened to
Charlotte Clopton, that lady, together with her father, her cousin
Walter, and young Shakespeare, were assembled in an ample apartment at
Clopton Hall, situate on the ground floor, the windows looking out upon
the lovely pleasure-grounds in the rear of the building. The youth had
spent the entire day at the hall, and in the society of those to whom he
had rendered so great a service.

Indeed any person (albeit he might not so well deserve consideration by
this good family) would still have been a cherished guest; nay, even an
"unmannered churl," under the same circumstances, would have been
tolerated and made much of; but in this lad, Sir Hugh and his family
found something so extraordinary, so superior, and of so amiable a
disposition, that it appeared a blessing and an honour to have him as an
associate beneath their roof.

Those who can associate with persons above them in rank, it has been
said, and yet neither disgust or affront them by over-familiarity, or
disgrace themselves by servility, prove that they are as much gentlemen
by nature as their companions are by rank and station. If our readers
wish to picture the youthful Shakespeare's first introduction into
"worshipful society," and amongst people of condition of his day, and
where he received those first impressions from which some of his
delicious scenes have been drawn, they must imagine to themselves a
large and somewhat gloomy oak-pannelled room, whose principal ornament
is the huge elaborately-carved chimney-piece, which, in truth, seems to
occupy one entire side of the apartment, and appears inclined also to
march into the very centre thereof. The apartment (albeit it was, as we
have said, by no means stinted to space, and had an exceeding quiet,
retired, and comfortable look withal) was by no means constructed or
fashioned after the more approved style of modern architecture. The
ceiling was somewhat low, traversed by an enormous beam, and cut and
carved elaborately, displaying fruits and flowers, heraldic devices of
the brave, and all those extraordinary and grotesque figures which the
cunning architects of old were so fond of inventing. On the side of the
apartment opposite the huge chimney-piece, and on which side hung
several scowling and bearded portraits, stood a sort of spinnet or
harpsichord, and beside that leant an instrument, fashioned somewhat
like a bass viol of the present day, but of a more curious form, and
elaborately inlaid with ivory, a viol-de-gamba, an instrument then much
in vogue. Two ample casements which opened inwards, and which were
festooned by creeping plants, the eglantine and sweet jessamine, and
which casements, as we have before said, looked into the green and
bowery garden, and through which the soft evening breeze of May breathed
the most exquisite perfume, gave a sort of green and fairy light to the
interior. A heavy oaken table with enormous legs was placed near the
window. Upon it were to be seen a silver salver, with several bottles of
antique and most exquisite pattern, containing liquors of comfortable
appearance and delicious flavour. These were flanked by high glasses of
Venetian workmanship. In addition to these articles, several high-backed
cane-bottomed chairs and one or two stools formed the remaining
furniture of the room, and which, in comparison with our own
over-crowded style, would perhaps have been termed only half furnished.

Nic-nacs there were few or none. Two or three dull-faced miniature
mirrors, looking all frame, hung heavily against the pannelling, and
even a cross-bow, several rapiers, one or two matchlocks, and other
weapons of ancient fashion, were to be observed; whilst, to complete the
picture, on the ample hearth (although the room constituted what in the
present day would have been called the withdrawing-room of the mansion)
sprawled several of the smaller dogs then used in field sports, and an
enormous hound, sufficiently large and powerful to pull down a stag; and
in the enjoyment of the sight and flavour of the good wines placed
before him, sat the portly form of the master of the house. Beside the
open window stood the youthful cavalier Walter Arderne, and on one of
the oaken lockers or benches in the embrazure of the casement, was
seated Charlotte Clopton. As she leant her cheek upon her hand, one
moment she gazed abstractedly into the bowery garden, the next her eyes
wandered into the softened light of the interior of the apartment, and
rested upon the features of her deliverer, young Shakespeare. This youth
stood beside the spinnet, and (unconscious of the sensation his
narrative produced upon the ears and hearts of his hearers, and of the
beauty of the description) was giving them the plot of a tale in verse
which he had that morning been perusing, when the lady's danger
interrupted him.

He related the story briefly, but in such language that his listeners
were wrapt by the recital. He even accompanied his description by some
action, and where he wished to impress his hearers more especially he
endeavoured to recollect and repeat the lines of the poem, piecing out
the story, when memory failed him, with such verses as he made for the
nonce.

In addition to these, the principal personages of our chapter, there was
one other individual in the room, who (albeit he occupied the background
of the scene, being crouched up in a corner) is also deserving of a
description.

This was a sort of hanger-on, or appendage to the establishments of the
old families of condition in England not then quite extinct--a sort of
good familiar creature, attached to the master of the house principally,
and indifferently familiar with all and sundry, in doors and out--a sort
of humorist--a privileged, seeming half idiotic, though in reality
extremely shrewd and clever companion, who used his folly "like a
stalking-horse, under cover of which, he shot his wit;" but who was
indeed more the friend than the fool of the family, and oft-times
consulted on matters of moment by the good knight.

This individual, clad in somewhat fantastic costume, fashioned by
himself, be it understood, and which it was his especial pleasure to
wear, (for Sir Hugh would by no means have forced any one in his
establishment to wear motley,) was seated in a huge high-backed
arm-chair, in a corner of the apartment, where, with his legs drawn up
under him on the cushion, his hands clasped together over his breast,
and his thumbs in his mouth, he kept a shrewd eye upon the other
occupants; the long ears of his cap every now and then, as they shook
with a sort of nervous twitch of the head, alone proclaiming that he was
not some stuffed ornament, occupying the position it was his wont
usually to choose in the apartment.

The story Shakespeare had related seemed to have made an impression on
his own youthful mind. It professed to pourtray that baneful passion
jealousy--a passion which, when once indulged, is the inevitable
destroyer of conjugal happiness. It formed one of the old romances then
in vogue amongst such as delighted in reading of the sort; for in those
days of leisure, sobriety, and lack of excitement amongst females in the
country, reading, spinning, embroidery, and other ornamental needlework,
principally occupied the hours of the elder; and out-door amusements and
music the younger. Those females who were given to literature, however,
would, in our times, have indeed been considered learned, since many
(albeit they eschewed light reading) understood both the Greek and Latin
tongues to perfection, and many were no less skilful in the Spanish,
Italian, and French.

In the narration of this story, and whilst (as we have said) young
Shakespeare gave his own version, might have been observed gleams of
that mighty genius which was, in after-times, to astonish the world.

His relation had, indeed, much of the fire and descriptive beauty which
he afterwards threw into every line of his writings. He called up before
his hearers the fiery openness of the injured husband; boundless in
confidence, ardent in affection. He touched upon the soft and gentle
simplicity of the victim; her consciousness of innocence; and her
slowness to suspect she could be suspected. And, lastly, he described
the clever devil, the fiend-like and malignant accuser, with matchless
power.

Indeed the enormity of the crime of adultery, and upon which this story
touched so forcibly, was in after days (as our readers doubtless
recollect) made by the great dramatic moralist the subject of not less
than four of his finished productions.

Another thing remarkable, and which struck all present, was the facility
with which, by a touch as it were, he ever and anon (and as if by some
incomprehensible magic of description) impressed the climate and
country, the manners and customs of the actors in this romance, upon the
hearers.

The relation had, indeed, seemed to the auditors like a dramatic
performance. The melody of the speaker's voice, and the lines he
uttered, left his audience as we sometimes feel after the scenic hour.
There was a want of some soother of the excitement produced.

The old knight felt this. He took his viol-de-gamba and drew his bow
lightly across the strings, producing that silver and somewhat solemn
sound which those who have heard the instrument so well remember--sounds
suited to the hour, age, and scene, and which give their own impressions
of days long passed away.

"Come, Charlotte," said Sir Hugh, after executing one of the pieces of
music then in vogue, "now a madrigal in which all can join. This youth
hath put a spell upon us with his sad story. Come, a madrigal; and after
that our evening meal in the garden, beneath the mulberry-tree. Do thou
take the first, whilst I and Walter chime in second and third, and
Martin shall e'en do his best to help us."

"Nay, uncle," said Martin, jerking out his legs straight before him,
then putting them to the ground gently, and then lightly executing a
sort of somersault and coming forward, "I pr'ythee hold me excused. I
shall but spoil your music: my voice is rugged. I am not gifted to sing
squealingly with a lady. A psalm or so at church, or a quaver after
supper I can execute; but my voice is like the howl of an Irish wolf
when I sing a part with the lady Charlotte: blessings on her celestial
throat."

"Nay, Martin," said Charlotte, as she seated herself, "thou wilt not
refuse when I tell thee it is to pleasure our new friend, to whom we owe
so much."

Martin glanced quickly upon Shakespeare, as she said this, and then
slowly turned his eye upon the young lady.

He stroked his chin knowingly, and seemed to be considering them both
very curiously. "Truly so," he said, "we do indeed owe much to this lad.
May God requite the debt." So saying, the familiar walked to the window,
and, looking affectionately in the handsome face of Walter, as he stood
leaning against the casement and regarding Charlotte, he put his arm
through that of the young cavalier, and remained beside him whilst the
madrigal was sung; his own fine bass voice coming in with singular
effect, and belying his modest assertion of incompetency.

To say that the voice of the lovely Charlotte delighted Shakespeare
would be to say little; he felt ravished and enchanted, and it left an
impression upon the young poet which he never forgot from that hour!

And oh! how calmly, how contentedly, and how quietly flowed the hours of
private life even during such a reign of glory as that of the great and
good Queen Bess!

In those days the whirl of events, the increasing villany of the world,
the petty doings of the actors in this vale of tears, the very minutiae
of crime and sin, the most paltry acts "committed on this ball of
earth," in town, city, village, and hamlet were not as now, printed and
published and blown into every corner of the kingdom, a few hours after
commission. Even the leading events of the day, the acts of the great
amongst the nations of the earth, and all the stirring deeds going on in
the world, and which shook and overturned thrones; even these travelled
slowly, and though posts "came tiring on," still rumour, full of
tongues, made oft-times many slanderous reports ere the true one was
manifest.

To the country gentleman his domain was his little world, his court,
wherein he received the homage of his neighbouring dependents and
tenants.

The charm of life consisted in these pursuits, those associations--nay
even those superstitions, and those antiquated customs which modern
utilitarianism has driven from the world. Whilst, as we have said,
mighty events shook the nation, men continued to pursue their even way
in that station of life in which it had pleased Heaven to call them.

After the madrigal, the old knight, with the viol-de-gamba clutched
between his legs, fell fast asleep, his wonted custom in the evening;
and having gently relieved him from all care of the instrument by
withdrawing it from his custody, Charlotte invited the trio to a stroll
in the garden, where they held converse upon various matters,
occasionally interrupted in their discourse by the quaint sayings and
witticisms of the shrewd Martin.




CHAPTER VI.

A DISAGREEABLE VISITOR.


'Twas a pleasing picture, that old knight taking his evening nap in his
oak pannelled room, so quiet and so retired, so undisturbed, except by
the cooing of the wood-pigeon, or the distant bay of the hound in the
kennel.

The evening breeze sighed drearily through the branches of the gigantic
cedar-tree in the garden, and whispered softly through the luxuriant
plants and shrubs which hung about the diamond-paned windows.

'Tis a sweet time that evening hour, in an old mansion far removed from
the bustle of the world. The oak floor, too, in the centre of the
apartment, was coloured faintly by the many tints reflected through the
stained glass in the upper compartments of the windows, and where the
arms and crest of the Cloptons were variously multiplied and emblazoned.
The dark polished oak of the huge chimney-piece, as the shadows of
evening descended, seemed framed of iron or ebony, the grotesque
figures, here and there ornamenting the higher parts, with their
demoniac faces and satyr-like bodies, seeming ready to pounce upon
whoever came within their reach.

Whilst the old knight enjoyed his siesta, every now and then giving a
sort of start in his deep sleep, or a prolonged snore, and then
twitching his muscular face and changing his position, the door of the
apartment was gently opened, and a tall shadowy figure, after hesitating
for a few moments at the threshold, and looking round, entered
cautiously, and approaching the sleeper stood and gazed long and fixedly
at his countenance.

What a contrast might a looker-on have observed in those two faces!--the
one round, ruddy, redolent of health, and shewing no traces of guilt or
care; the other worn, pale, anxious, and cadaverous-looking. The broad
brim of the stranger's hat was drawn down and pulled low over his
forehead, his dark and grizzled hair looked thin and perished, matching
well with the iron gray of his complexion, and his forked beard,
presenting altogether a worn and haggard appearance, a man of dark
passions, evil thoughts, and sinister disposition.

After gazing for some time at Sir Hugh, the stranger laid his heavy
gauntlet upon his shoulder and suddenly awoke him.

The knight opened his eyes, stared at the dark countenance so suddenly
presented to him for a few moments, and then starting up, stepped a pace
or two back and laid his hand upon the hilt of his rapier.

The grim stranger smiled at the startled look of the old knight, "Fear
me not, Sir Hugh," he said. "I come not with intent to do thee harm."

"Fear thee," said Sir Hugh contemptuously, "wherefore should I fear? But
thou comest upon me in my secure hour here--and I know thee not. Stand
off, lest I smite thee."

"That would be a poor reception for an old friend," said the other,
smiling a grim smile.

"An old friend!" said Sir Hugh, in tones of surprise; "truly then thou
art an old friend with a new face. May heaven protect me, if ever I
looked upon that white-livered visage of thine before."

"Art thou quite sure of that, Sir Hugh Clopton?" said the stranger.
"Look again; time and care and climate have written, I dare be sworn,
strange defeatures in my face, but yet methinks twenty years ago the
name of Parry was not altogether unknown at Clopton."

"Parry!" said Sir Hugh, starting; "art thou Gilbert Parry? and what doth
the banished traitor Parry within my walls? Hence, sirrah; I wish for
the companionship of no man polluted with crimes such as thine."

"Nay, soft, Sir Hugh," said the visitor, "I come with credentials from
one thou darest not slight. Look ye, I am bearer of a letter from the
Nuncio Campeggio, and I demand speech with Father Eustace, who dwells in
thy house here."

Sir Hugh again started; he took the letter from the hand of his visitor,
and read it attentively.

"Truly," he said, "the letter is as thou say'st. In it I find I am
ordered to give thee shelter here for the space of one week; affording
thee and those with whom thou consortest such secresy and seclusion as
thou may'st desire. I dare not deny the hospitality so enjoined, but in
good sooth I had as lief thou had'st sought it elsewhere, Gilbert
Parry."

"'Tis well," said Parry, taking his riding-cloak from his shoulders;
"Clopton hath secret chambers, I know, as well as that devoted servants
of the Catholic Church dwell beneath its roof."

"May I not know," inquired Sir Hugh, "of the business which employs the
talents of Gilbert Parry, and makes the Pope's Nuncio his introducer
within my walls?"

"At more fitting opportunity perchance thou mayest," returned Parry,
whose manner had become more assured after he observed the impression
the letter he had delivered had made; "at the present moment I require
rest and refreshment."

Sir Hugh said no more; he stepped to a concealed pannel beside the huge
chimney-piece, and drawing it aside, ushered his guest into a small
closet-like apartment, and then carefully closed the pannel again. A
narrow winding staircase ascended from this small room into the chamber
above, and which was only known or used by Sir Hugh himself, together
with Martin and the priest, who occasionally visited at the Hall.

After entering, Sir Hugh signed to his guest to ascend the staircase.

"Thou wilt find every accommodation here in this chamber," he said, "and
refreshment shall be served to thee by one I can trust. Father Eustace
is at present absent from Clopton, but to-morrow I expect he will
return."

"I would confer with him without delay," said Parry, "so soon as he
returns."

"Be it so," said Sir Hugh, retiring from the apartment, and descending
the stairs; seeming, as he did so, by his manner, not sorry to withdraw
from the companionship of his new guest.

As soon as he had descended into the small apartment we have before
described, he paused for a few moments, and then unlocked and opened a
low postern door, which admitted into the garden, and, guided by the
voices of his daughter and her party in the distance, immediately sought
them.

It was by no means uncommon for the Catholics, during this reign, to
hold secret intercourse with each other after the fashion we have just
described, going from house to house with the utmost care; the more
violent and remorseless making it their practice to seek refuge
oft-times amongst the quieter gentry, and, under cover of their
respectability, carrying on their designs with greater security.

In pursuance of such custom, Sir Hugh's new visitor had now sought
shelter at Clopton. He had, on that same evening, arrived at Stratford
in company with others, and immediately on dismounting from his horse,
had walked across the meadows, entered the grounds, and being well
acquainted with the localities, introduced himself into the house
without being seen by any one.

When Sir Hugh joined his daughter and her party, there was a something
of anxiety upon his brow which was not usual with him. But so deeply
interested were Charlotte and Walter Arderne with the conversation of
their new formed acquaintance, that they observed it not. The quick eye,
however, of the shrewd Martin (who so well knew his old master's habits)
saw at a glance that something had puddled the clear spirit of the
knight; and advancing towards him, they walked apart and held converse
together.

"Is there ill news toward?" said Martin. "Something I perceive hath
disturbed you, and broken in upon your slumbers."

"I have had a visitor, Martin," said Sir Hugh; "one with whom I had long
closed the accounts of acquaintanceship as a dangerous companion."

"Know I the man?" inquired Martin.

"Like myself you did so," returned Sir Hugh; "but evil courses drove him
from the country some years back. You remember Gilbert Parry?"

"What," said Martin, "he who was condemned to death as a traitor some
five years ago, and to whom the Queen graciously granted a free pardon?"

"The same. He hath been with me just now."

"He was ever a restless dangerous knave," said Martin; "his visit might
well have been spared. I trust it was a short one."

"Nay," said Sir Hugh, "he hath claimed the hospitality of Clopton on
matters of moment connected with holy mother Church, and hath shewn me
letters from the Nuncio Campeggio, and from Ragazoni at Paris."

"He comes from abroad, then, I dare be sworn," said Martin, "and on no
good errand depend on't, and he makes Clopton his place of residence on
his first arrival, in order to be in security whilst he spies into the
localities, and sounds his instruments; ah, and by my fay, 'tis a crafty
and a dangerous companion, whose designs may get us into trouble. But an
I dive not into his contrivances I would I might never taste hippocras
again."

"I would have thee do so, Martin, if it be possible," said Sir Hugh,
"for I like not such guests; albeit, their visits are sanctioned and
enjoined by the mighty in our Church. Nay, it was but last week I had a
visit from Ralph Somerville, of Warwick, who held me in dangerous
converse a whole hour, upon the necessity of smiting all heretics and
persecutors. His discourses on religious matters shewed a distempered
brain. Troth, I was glad to be rid of him."

"'Tis strange," said Martin, "to behold the spirit which everywhere
actuates those who profess more religion than their neighbours, both
Protestants and Catholics. By my faith, men will dispute upon the
subject, cut a throat for religion, indite most learned matter
appertaining,--anything but live for it."

"'Tis even so, Martin," said Sir Hugh with a sigh, "and therefore doth
it behove us, and all those who are not of this bigoted and intolerant
spirit, to guard our hearths from the danger of such association. A
presentiment of evil is upon my mind since this man's coming, which I
cannot shake off. Be it thy business to look to his wants this evening.
To-morrow Father Eustace returns, and we shall then know more about his
designs."

"Ah, that Eustace!" muttered Martin to himself. "Hath he ever seen this
man?" he inquired aloud.

"I think not," said Sir Hugh; "they have never met to my knowledge."

"Enough," said Martin; "leave him to me. Now break we off, and let us
join our party. See where the lady Charlotte leads her two attendant
swains toward the house yonder. This new-found friend, Sir Hugh,"
continued Martin, "this youth, whose merits seem so far beyond his
fortunes, is he likely to remain long at Clopton?"

"He tarries here to-night, Martin," said Sir Hugh, "and shall be ever
welcome. We are deeply his debtor."

"Humph," said Martin significantly, "I supposed as much, and I suppose
it must even be so,--_but_----"




CHAPTER VII.

PLOTS AND COUNTERPLOTS.


England, up to the period of Elizabeth's reign, at which our story has
now arrived, had been blessed in the enjoyment of the most absolute
security.

The scene, however, was now beginning to change, and multiplied dangers
to threaten the maiden Queen from various quarters.

Scotland and its affairs gave Elizabeth continued uneasiness, and every
new revolution amongst the wild and turbulent nobles of that rude land
caused her fresh anxiety, because that country alone being not separated
from England by sea, and bordering on all the Catholic and malcontent
countries, afforded her enemies an easy mode of annoying her.

Nothing could be more romantic, wild, and extravagant than the stories
which those of the English who had penetrated far north brought back of
the state of the nation, and the manners and disposition of the
inhabitants; and which, if they were to be believed, described the
chieftains in the hill countries as living amidst their wild and savage
retainers in a singular style of feudal grandeur and semi-barbarism.

Nay, such was, in reality, the nature of the rude Highlanders in the
remoter districts of Scotland, that, for an Englishman to attempt to
penetrate into their fastnesses, would have been attended with the same
difficulty and danger as at the present time a journey into the centre
of Africa is exposed to. So that to the generality of the English nation
the interior of Scotland was a _terra incognita_; whilst the dark and
ominous rumours continually floating about, pictured the very court
itself of that distracted country in a most strange and unnatural light.
Murders, conspiracies, rebellions, and every sort of consequence upon
misrule and headstrong passion, seemed the every-day occurrence there.

In Ireland, too, (where the inhabitants were equally wild, reckless, and
opposite to England,) every invader found ready auxiliaries.

Alienated by religious prejudices, that nation hated the English with a
peculiar and deadly animosity; an animosity which has rankled in their
breasts up to the present time, and caused the shedding of rivulets of
blood.

The anxiety of the Queen, on account of the attempts of the English
Catholics, never ceased during the course of her reign, and was at this
period greater than ever: whilst the continued revolutions happening to
all the neighbouring kingdoms were the source of her continued
apprehension Plots after plots were concocted in all quarters against
her life, and which were being as constantly brought to light by one
extraordinary chance or another.

The Cloptons, as we have seen, were members of the Church of Rome,
though they were of the milder sort of Catholics, steering clear of all
those intrigues and conspiracies which the more bigoted of their
persuasion were so continually engaged in.

They were, indeed, well thought of and regarded by the government and
the queen, and the good Sir Hugh was beloved and respected by all
parties. Still the iron rule of the Church of Rome was upon him and his
household, and held him under subjection. Many, therefore, were the
narrow escapes he had experienced from being drawn into the violent and
bloody plots and conspiracies the more dangerous and bigoted members of
his creed had already been engaged in.

In a former chapter our readers have seen a person of this latter sort
arrive stealthily at the Hall, and fasten himself upon the secret
hospitality of Sir Hugh, in virtue of the powerful letters he produced.

What the designs of this man might be it was impossible to fathom, and
Sir Hugh well knew that from the circumstance of his being himself
considered but a mild and luke-warm Catholic by the more zealous and
violent party, (although he might be made use of,) he would scarcely be
initiated by them into their secrets.

Under such circumstances, the faithful Martin, (whose devotion towards
the family of his old friend and patron amounted to a species of
worship,) in taking upon himself the office of attendant upon the
unwelcome guest, resolved to play the spy upon him at the same time,
and, if possible, pluck out the heart of his mystery. The absence of the
priest (who frequently resided at the Hall) favoured this design; and
(on leaving Sir Hugh) Martin ascended to the apartment usually occupied
by Father Eustace, where he doffed his motley coat, and induing the
garments of the priest, suddenly presented himself before Parry.

The talent for humour possessed by this singular being made his design
peculiarly agreeable to him, for to play a part (even under dangerous
circumstances) was quite in accordance with his disposition.

On entering he found the object of his visit seated upon the small
truckle bed with which the room was accommodated, and which (except two
chairs) was all the furniture in it--the bed standing in a recess.

The room itself was one of those small, curious chambers peculiar to the
buildings of the Catholic gentry during this and the subsequent reign.
It seemed evidently to have been contrived for purposes of seclusion and
concealment, and was more like the cell of a monastery than a chamber in
a private dwelling. Cribbed, as it seemed to have been, out of some
corner of the edifice, where an apartment would never have been thought
of; the only light by which this closet-like room was illuminated in the
day-time being from a small concealed window, so contrived as not to be
visible from the grounds without.

So deep in his own contemplations was the occupant of this chamber,
that, at first, he did not observe the entrance of the disguised Martin.
When he did so, however, he quickly started to his feet, and the riding
cloak which he had unfastened slipping from his shoulders shewed that he
was armed (as the phrase goes) to the very teeth. Rapier and dagger were
by his side, a pair of the huge, ill-contrived, petronels of the period
at his waist, and in place of a shirt it was evident that he wore a sort
of hauberk of linked steel beneath his upper garments; in fact, a more
dangerous-looking and dishevelled companion the shrewd Martin had seldom
beheld.

"The peace of Heaven be upon thee, my son," said Martin, as the visitor
confronted him.

"Such peace as Heaven wills," returned the other.

"Those who have to do the work are not permitted peace of mind or body
in this world. Art thou him to whom I am secretly commended at Clopton,
the good Father Eustace?"

"Such is the name men usually give the wearer of these garments of the
Church, my son," returned Martin. "I would they clove to the body of a
more worthy representative."

"The business I have with thee, good father," said Parry, "is of that
dangerous and imminent nature that I may not trust to thy word alone. I
must be furnished with proof of thy identity. Sir Hugh Clopton affirmed
but now that Father Eustace was at present absent from the Hall."

"I have but now returned," said Martin, "and immediately have sought
thee out by Sir Hugh's desire. What you have to communicate can either
be withheld or given freely, I seek not to know the secret of others.
Letters of import, as I learn, hath procured thee a secret asylum here,
without which, as thou art aware, thou could'st not have been received,
neither can I hold converse with thee, unless thou canst shew such
documents or explain the reasons of thy coming hither."

"Enough said, father," returned Parry, thrown off his guard, "those
documents thou shalt have; meantime hear the reasons which have moved me
to this visit, and my intent in seeking thee."

"Proceed," said Martin, seating himself, whilst the other walked
restlessly up and down the small room, apparently carried away by the
violence of his own thoughts.

"Thou knowest my early history," he said, "and how that after being an
undutiful son, a sabbath-breaker, and a blasphemer, the devil lured me
to the commission of crimes by which my life was forfeited to the laws?"

"I have heard these things," said Martin, "and such part of the story
needs no repetition. The Queen granted you a free pardon, for which you
are doubtless grateful, and resolved in making amends?"

"I had resolved on doing so," said Parry, "and hoped for days of
repentance and happiness, but none came, as you shall hear. The fiend
still held possession. I wandered about in woods and solitary places,
for the sight of my fellow creatures was horrible to me. Nay, I thought
every one seemed happy but myself, and the evil one constantly whispered
that there was no mercy for Gilbert Parry. Again, therefore, I sought
society, gave the reins to my evil desires, and myself up to evil ways,
and again conscience troubled me. I had rest neither by night nor day. I
feared the night, lest the enemy should take me before morning. I tried
to pray, but could not. I passed whole days as if my body had been
pricked down irrecoverably, persuaded the fiend was in my apartment.
Nay, my very body was in flames. To cry for help was vain, no relief
came, and I was ever filled with evil thoughts. Such, holy father, were
the torments I endured for five years. At length it appeared to me that
this state of persecution arose from some cause in which I was called
upon to exert myself. Then considered I of the persecuted state of our
religion, and that I was called upon to strike a blow for its welfare.
In short I resolved to do a deed which (by destroying the great enemy of
our Church) should obtain for me the crown of martyrdom."

"Proceed, my son," said Martin, who, seated with his chin upon his
doubled fists, was listening to and contemplating the excited Parry with
the utmost attention. "Proceed, my son, wherefore dost thou stop?"

The narrator of his own troubled thoughts regarded Martin with a deep
and searching look. "Methought I saw a devilish smile upon thy face," he
said sternly. "Is the relation of such things subject of ridicule?"

"Rather of pity," said Martin; "I smiled to think that a whip and a dark
room might have dispelled such phantoms. The most absurd doctrines are
not without such evidence as martyrdom can produce."

"You think, then," said Parry, "that penance and flagellation were
required?"

"Call it so, an if you will," said Martin, "fasting is good for
digestion, and real pain for imaginary suffering. Doubtless you lived
well whilst this frenzy lasted. You was, you say, leading a wild life,
perhaps drunk one-half of the twenty-four hours, and mad the other. A
bad state of the stomach produces fumes upon the brain. I would have
exorcised the fiend by blood-letting, blisters, purgation, and
purification. But proceed, you was about to say what this continued
spiritual ague wrought you to."

"The cutting off of one who is the bitter enemy of our creed, the
usurper of the throne of these realms," said Parry, "the putting to
death of Elizabeth Tudor."

"Ah, ah," said Martin, "methought 'twould tend that way. She to whom you
are indebted for a life, is to pay the forfeit of life for her
clemency."

"And you disapprove of my project, then?" inquired Parry.

"Nay, I said not so much, did I?" returned the shrewd Martin.

"But you inferred so much, did you not?" again inquired Parry.

"Mayhap I did, mayhap I did not," said Martin, who saw by the eye of
Parry that his own situation, thus shut up with such a man, and under
false colours, was somewhat perilous, especially as Parry in his excited
state begun to fumble with the poniard at his waist. Martin in short now
saw that his companion was mad. Under such circumstances to shew fear or
distrust is to perish.

"In trusting Father Eustace," said Parry, placing himself between Martin
and the door, "I was led to expect I should find one ready in every way
to forward and aid so great a design. Such was the assurance I received
from Ragazoni. I brook no prevarication, priest; neither will I run the
risk of betrayal." So saying, Parry drew his dagger from the sheath,
looking at Martin at the same time with the ferocity of a tiger ready to
spring.

"'Tis not often that ministers of the Holy Mother Church are threatened
thus," said Martin coolly, and without altering his position.

"I will drive my dagger to the heart of every member of this household,"
said Parry, "rather than endanger the success of my project."

"That in itself would ruin the project, as far as you are its executor,"
returned Martin, "since you would be likely to be apprehended and suffer
for your violence."

"Swear upon the hilt of my poniard not to divulge what I have just
related," said Parry, becoming somewhat less excited, and thrusting his
dagger close to the mouth of Martin. "Swear."

"I am ready to do so," said Martin, quietly moving the steel from its
close proximity to his lips, "with one reservation however, that Sir
Hugh Clopton is to be informed of it."

"Ah," said Parry, seeming to reflect, and as suddenly changing from his
excited state to comparative calmness, "was I not told to take the
advice of Father Eustace, as to the propriety of making Sir Hugh Clopton
acquainted with this design? And you advise such measure, do you,
father?"

"Most assuredly; for what other purpose have you sought his roof?"

"For the purpose," said Parry, "of being in the vicinity of others
cognizant of my design in this country, and of conferring with yourself
in security, since my steps and motions, until I took refuge in
Warwickshire, have been closely watched."

"Good," returned Martin. "Now, wilt follow my advice since you have been
sent to seek it?"

"I will," said Parry.

"Thus it is," said Martin; "dismiss all further thoughts connected with
your design to-night: partake of the refreshments I have brought with
me, and then seek the repose you so much need. _To-morrow_ we will talk
further, taking Sir Hugh into our counsels; and so I take my leave." As
he said this Martin rose, and was about to pass Parry, carefully making
a circuit so as to get between him and the door, the latter following
him as he did so with a doubtful eye.

"You are a different man from the person I was led to expect in Father
Eustace," said Parry, still dallying with his drawn dagger.

"I am as you see me," said Martin, "true to my word and to the master I
serve."

"And you swear not to divulge?" said Parry.

"Except to Sir Hugh--I swear," said Martin.

"Be it so," said Parry, sheathing his dagger and stepping aside. "Good
night, father."

"To-morrow early I will again be with you," said Martin. "Good night",
and the next moment he was outside the small apartment.




CHAPTER VIII.

STRATFORD-UPON-AVON.


On the skirts of the county of Warwick (saith a modern author), situated
on the low meadowy banks of a river, there is a little quiet country
town, boasting nothing to attract the attention of the traveller but a
fine church and one or two antique buildings with elaborately carved
fronts of wood or stone, in the peaceful streets. There would seem to be
little traffic in that place, and the passing traveller, ignorant of the
locality, would scarcely cast a second look around. But whisper its name
into his ear, and, hand in hand with his ignorance, his apathy will
straightway depart. He will stop his horse; he will descend from the
saddle; he will explore those quiet streets, he will enter more than one
of the houses in that little town; he will visit that old church, he
will pause reverentially before its monuments; he will carry away with
him some notes--perhaps some sketches; and remember what he saw and what
he felt that day to the very close of his life. Indeed you will seldom
fail to see, even in that quiet little town, small groups of people on
whose faces and in whose demeanour you will recognize the stranger
stamp. There is something to see in those unfrequented streets; and they
have come a long way to see it. What wonder! The town is
Stratford-upon-Avon.

Such is indeed Stratford-upon-Avon at the present time. But in the
sixteenth century it presented a somewhat different aspect.

The different towns in England, at this latter period, were just
beginning to emerge from their state of primitive rudeness and
irregularity, and the houses to be distinguished for a style of
architectural beauty and comfort as dwellings, which has not since been
improved or exceeded.

The various contentions and intestine jars which had, almost up to the
reign of Elizabeth, drained the population, and kept men from all
peaceful occupations and improvements, and in consequence of which the
squalor of their dwellings and tenements were but one degree improved
from the rudeness of the Norman period, was now to give place to a style
which, if but one tenement remain to us in a town of the present age, we
look at it with delight and admiration. Stratford-upon-Avon then, in the
year 1584, might be said to partake largely of both these styles. In
some parts were to be seen those irregular ill-built wooden tenements,
little removed from the hut of the Norman citizen. These standing apart,
and without regard to streets, formed the abode of the poorer sort of
inhabitants, and chiefly constituted the suburbs; whilst several regular
streets were to be found composed of handsome, strong-built,
heavily-timbered, and substantial dwellings, having their shops
encroaching into the streets; their beetling storeys above; their long
passages running backwards, with ample yards and gardens in rear; and
their low-roofed wide-chimneyed, secluded, and comfortable rooms,
secured by massive iron-studded doors, and accommodated with heavy
cumbrous articles of furniture.

Here and there too, in the midst, were to be seen the mouldering remains
of some dark monastic building of a former day. The walls of edifices,
built in the dark ages of monkish intolerance, whose grated windows and
low-arched doors told of the Saxon and the Dane, when, save the
splendour of religious architecture, there was nothing between the hut
and the castle.

Nothing could be more rural and picturesque than Stratford-upon-Avon on
a bright summer's day. Its streets, as we have before partially
described, and (as was mostly the case in unwalled towns at this period)
were, except in the very centre of the town, composed of houses
detached at irregular intervals, many of the edifices being partially
screened by the luxuriant trees which shadowed their fronts, and grew in
the gardens in rear: added to this, in the suburban thoroughfares of
this town, it was not uncommon to find a clump of tall elms or oaks
growing in the very centre of the road, beneath whose boughs the rude
bench, the horse-trough, and the creaking sign proclaimed the immediate
vicinity of the smaller hostel.

If the traveller looked from the town, he beheld the high road he was to
traverse on leaving it, o'ercanopied by the forest scene without, whilst
on entering the suburbs, the sloping roof, gable ends, and heavy
chimneys were only here and there to be caught sight of amongst the
living verdure in which they were embosomed.

Besides this, as he proceeded, the picture was added to by the various
signs of the several trades, which proclaimed the occupation of the
indwellers, and before many of the houses were placed long benches on
which, in fine weather, the townsfolk were to be found seated,
conversing cozily together in their quaint-cut doublets and
steeple-crowned hats. Large tubs of water also, by order of the chief
magistrate, were placed beside each dwelling, as a precautionary
preventative against the spread of fire amongst these stout-timbered
edifices. The highways, however, even in the outskirts of the town, were
by no means so well cared for as in our own times, and in foul weather,
in place of a well-paved or Macadamized thoroughfare, the road was
knee-deep in mud, and cut up fearfully with cart wheels and other
traffic of the time.

In what would now be called a small and somewhat mean-looking dwelling,
but which in the reign of Elizabeth constituted the habitation of a good
substantial citizen, resided John Shakespeare, a dealer in wool in
Stratford-upon-Avon. The house itself had nothing in its outward
appearance to recommend it, except the strength of its build and the
stoutness of its timbers.

It was neither "a goodly dwelling or a rich." Its rooms were both
stinted to space and somewhat low in roof. But little did its inmates
suspect that from the mere legend of one of its indwellers having first
drawn breath beneath its roof, that house would create more interest in
the world than the most magnificent palace the world contained, and that
in after-ages the four corners of the earth would send forth votaries to
see, to worship, and to offer adoration at its shrine. And still less
did its occupants imagine that in the person of one of their own
children they possessed a treasure, whose very name, unthought of and
slightly regarded as he then was, would prove dearer than Pluto's mine,
more rich than gold.

Let us for a moment take a glance at the interior of this hallowed
residence, and view it at the precise period of time to which the minds
of those who now visit it are wont to revert; and when he who was in
after-times to throw so great an interest over every cupboard, corner,
and cranny of its stout-timbered walls, was in life, and dwelling idly
in its apartments.

In an inner apartment of the ground-floor was seated on a high-backed
oaken chair, a female of some thirty years of age. If the reader has
ever bestowed his attention upon the portrait Rubens has left us of his
first wife, it will save much trouble in the description, since both in
feature and figure this very handsome middle-aged female was the
counterpart presentment of that portrait.

Opposite to her, and apparently engaged with books and accounts
pertaining to his business, pen in hand, and inditing what, in the
present day, would be called a cramped piece of penmanship, sits a very
comely and respectable-looking man. Nay, if we look closely at him we
shall pronounce him to be a splendid specimen of an Englishman, both in
countenance and figure. His face is exceedingly handsome, the complexion
of a rich brown, the features high and aquiline, hair of a dark auburn,
slightly tinged with grey, whilst a close-clipped curly beard worn round
the chin, and a thick moustachio on the upper lip, complete the picture
of one of those true-born English yeomen whose ancestors drew their
arrows to the ear in the fields of Cressey, Poietiers, and Agincourt. If
our readers then look upon this pair they will behold the father and
mother of England's pride and glory, John and Joan Shakespeare.

In the female there is a dignity of look and manner which seems somewhat
out of keeping with so lowly a home as the one we find her in. She looks
one whose presence would have better suited the hall than the cottage.
One come of gentle blood, and born to fortune instead of being the wife
of a tradesman in a country town, handsome and genteel-looking as nature
hath made that husband.--Such is in truth the case, as John Shakespeare
married one of the daughters and heirs of Arden of Wellingcote, in the
county of Warwick.

This pair, however, were not the only occupants of the small inner
apartment in which we have found them, as some half-a-dozen curly-headed
varlets, male and female, of various ages, from three to ten, were
sitting and sprawling about the floor, clambering upon chairs,
exercising their lungs in concert, and ever and anon calling forth a
short reproof or a caress from their handsome parents.

After a while, the wool-comber shuts up his books, places his pen in the
inkstand, and folding his arms, remains wrapt in deep meditation.

There is something of care and anxiety in his countenance. His thoughts
and cogitations, as he occasionally glances upon his good-looking
spouse, and then watches the young fry upon the floor, become more
troubled; and, apparently to hide the growing heaviness of his brow, he
rises, walks into the shop in front, reaches down his steeple-crowned
hat, and looks forth into the street,--the little curly brood breaking
cover as he opens the door, and bounding joyously into the sunshine in
the streets.

As they do so, they are met, caught up, and kissed, (at least the
younger ones,) by their elder brother, just now returning to his home.

"Ah, Will, good Will," cries one, "where have you been tarrying so
long?" "Naughty truant Willy," cries another, "you've been rambling over
to Warwick with Dick, the tanner's wild son, duck-hunting, I dare be
sworn." "Nay," cries a third, "I know he has been otter-hunting all
night in the river; see his staff is red with blood. Yon have brought us
some skins, good William, hast thou not?"

"Nay, in good sooth, you varlets," said the elder brother, entering the
door with the whole fry clinging round him, "I have neither wild fowl
from the marshes, nor otters from the river; for none have I been in
search of. I come home empty-handed this afternoon, for which you must
forgive me."

"And where, then, hast thou been, William?" said his father, somewhat
gravely. "This idle wandering life of thine will, I fear me, lead to
nothing. Master Pouncet Grasp has fairly given me warning that he will
have no more to do with thee. He complains that you keep no regular
hours; you heed no orders or directions he gives; that you set him at
naught, in sooth, and make his other lads more idle than yourself. Nay,
he says you spoil his parchments, spill his ink in waste, and that, in
truth, he must either be ruined or be rid of thee."

"Out upon the miserable scrivener," returned William, laughing. "I did
but pen a stanza in place of drawing a lease, and lo! he has never
forgotten it. But, in good sooth, dear father," continued the youth, "I
fear me I shall never thrive in the office of Pouncet Grasp. I find the
dry work of a copying-clerk but an idle waste of the life Heaven hath
blessed me with. I was not formed to draw leases, wills, and other
tenures and tricks of lawcraft.

    "Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch,
    Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth,
    Between two girls, which hath the merrier eye--
    I have, perchance, some shallow spirit of judgment;
    But in the nice sharp quillets of the law,
    Good faith, I am no wiser than a jackdaw."

"Thou canst rhapsodize at a good rate, my son," said the father, "that I
well know. But in good truth thou must turn over a new leaf with Lawyer
Grasp, or he will turn thee off, William!"

"Nay," urged the youth, "since we have entered upon this matter, I must
tell thee, father, that never since the pupil age of Adam was there poor
wight more unfitted for a lawyer than myself; my pen runs riot when I
put it upon parchment; I cannot indite the undoing of the widow and the
orphan, even when the _foul_ copy lies before my nose. I turn a writ
into a love-song, and when I should copy out an ejectment, lo! I find I
have penned the words of a madrigal."

"The more the pity, William," said the father, "for to speak sooth to
thee, I find myself by no means in so thriving a condition as I could
wish. There be a many of us now in family, great and small. Business
slackens with me, and in good sooth, lad, an I do not better in the
next three months than I have done the last, I may e'en close my books,
shut the house, and stick up bills to let the premises. Ruin, William,
stares me in the face, if matters mend not anon. A bad time such for you
to be thinking of changing from the vocation I have placed you in."

"Neither would I think of changing, father," returned the son, "did I
think that, by remaining _in_ the law, I could help you or advance
myself. But believe me, so opposite is the dull routine of the desk, so
abhorrent to my soul is the craft of a lawyer, that rather than follow
such a calling I would take the sword my grandsire won at Bosworth, and
seek a livelihood in any place where men cut throats in the way of
profession. Those were sad times, father, but they were stirring times,
those days of York and Lancaster, when--

    "Trenching war channell'd our fields,
    And bruised our flowrets with the armed hoofs
    Of hostile paces."

As the youth uttered this with something of a theatrical air, and giving
the words great force by his utterance, his father looked at him with
considerable curiosity. "Now, by my halidame," he said, "I cannot half
fathom thee, William. Truly thou art a riddle to make out. Seeming fit
for nothing, and yet good at all things. I would I knew, in good sooth,
what to put thee to."

The lad smiled. "Nay," he said, "I must not be undutiful towards one so
good. I will then continue to try and please this godless lawyer till
something better turns up. And now I must tell thee I have made a friend
of one well known to thee, and who is willing to serve us in requital
for some little service he hath received at my hands."

"Of whom dost thou speak, William?" inquired the father.

"Of Sir Hugh Clopton," returned the youth.

"Nay, and thou hast made friends of Sir Hugh and his family," said John
Shakespeare, "thou hast done thyself good service, and, mayhap, he may
advance thee in life: though what he will find thee fit for, William, I
wot not."

"Truly, father," said William, "I confess myself but a tattered
prodigal, only fitted to eat draff and husks. Nevertheless, an thou wilt
but admit me, I would fain join these hungry varlets at their evening
meal, and beg a blessing of my honoured mother, whose sweet face I have
scarce looked at these two days past."

"Well, come thy ways in, thou scoffer," said John Shakespeare,
good-naturedly. "I defy the evil one to be angry with such a madcap as
thou art."

So saying, Master John Shakespeare turned and entered the house, his
eldest son following with all his little brothers and sisters clinging
to him--one upon his back, another in his arms, and the remainder
pulling at the skirts of his coarse gray doublet.

To picture the private hours of the great is a difficult, as well as a
thankless, task we opine, since oft-times more is expected than is in
reality to be found; and our readers will scarce be contented to find
the youthful Shakespeare--in all the freedom, amiability, and kindness
of his disposition--the great, the illustrious, the unmatchable--the
mere playmate of his little brothers and sisters, and, whilst sitting
beneath the huge chimney in that small dark room, as he watches the
preparation for the evening meal, engaged in a joyous game of romps.

Yet such is the case. The gentle William, despite the greatness of his
spirit and the waywardness of his disposition, which seems inclined to
settle to nothing, is the darling of that home circle, the joy of his
brothers and sisters, and, when at home, entering into all their little
amusements and pastimes with heart and hand,--nay, their nurse when
sick, and even assisting his mother oft-times in her little attentions
towards them,--ere he himself, in all "the unyoked humour of his
idleness," sallies out to join his youthful associates of the town.

Our readers will, therefore, not be surprised to find that great mind,
which in a single line could send a thrill through the soul of his
readers, intent upon an infantine game in the "ingle neuk."

The pecuniary difficulties John Shakespeare had hinted at to his son
were consequent upon his having maintained a somewhat "more swelling
port than his faint means would grant continuance." No man in Stratford
was better thought of or more respected than neighbour Shakespeare.
There was something about him so well bred and so superior to his
station in life, that he bore with him a degree of influence seldom
granted except to rank and fortune.

The chief magistrate of the body corporate of Stratford was in the early
charters called the high bailiff. This office Master John Shakespeare
had filled some few years previous to the date of our story, and the
execution of such office had led him into expenses which he had since in
vain tried to abridge. "To some men, their virtues stand them but as
enemies," and thus the good and companionable qualities of Master
Shakespeare, notwithstanding his domestic habits, were so greatly
esteemed that his hospitality was taxed accordingly, and his hearth
seldom unhonoured by guests after business hours. Nay, at no hour was
the little back parlour of his house entirely free from the gossiping
neighbour who came down to talk over the politics of the town, or
discuss the latest floating rumour of the stirring events of Elizabeth's
reign.

Newspaper intelligence, we have said, there was none at this period,
and, in the absence of such a vehicle for information, men's mouths were
filled with any stirring tidings, and they donned their castors and
hurried about in a country town, stuffing each other's ears with false
reports, and frightening the place from its propriety when any event of
particular import happened.

            "From Rumour's tongues
    They brought smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs."

"Heard ye the news, neighbour Shakespeare?" said Master Doubletongue the
mercer, entering the small parlour we have attempted to describe, and
joining the family circle. "Heard ye the news to-night?"

"Good or bad be it?" said John Shakespeare smiling, "it would have been
curious news an it had travelled hither before you brought it, neighbour
Doubletongue. Come, sit, man, sit, fill your cup and give us your news.
What! hath Dame Illwill been brought to bed of twins, or how goes the
story?"

"Nay, neighbour," returned Doubletongue, who was one of the veriest
scandal-mongers in Stratford, "Dame Illwill hath not produced twins,
neither do I think she will produce the half of twins. By the same
token, I heard the Leech say, 'twas after all but a dropsy that had
caused all this scandal in her disfavour. But body o'me, heard ye not
the news just now brought to town?"

"That Dame Illwill's affair is likely to end in a bottle of smoke? why,
man, thou hast just told us as much."

"Ah," said Doubletongue, taking off his cap like one who found he had in
him wherewithal to interest his auditor, "then I _see_ you have not
heard the news. Ergo, the news is mine to give."

"Then I take it, neighbour," said John Shakespeare, "there are but two
ways, either to give or to retain it. Come, another cup will perhaps
help its deliverance."

"Nay," said Doubletongue, who but half relished the lack of excitement
his intended communication seemed to make, "you will scarce keep the
native colour in your cheek, neighbour, when I do tell ye what's afloat
to-night. The affair, then, gossips, is thus----"

"Whose affair?" interrupted John Shakespeare, "not the one you just now
spoke of?"

"Did I hint anything?" inquired Doubletongue.

"About a certain female you did," said John Shakespeare.

"Of illustrious rank?" said Doubletongue. "Why, then you _have_ heard?"

"We have heard what you have just told us," said John Shakespeare.

"The news?"

"The news."

"What! of Queen Elizabeth?"

"Nay, Heaven forbid we should sit to hear such words uttered about our
gracious Queen," said John Shakespeare with much solemnity. "'Tis even
dangerous to breathe such a scandal in such a quarter."

"Then of whom were we speaking?" said Doubletongue. "I gave no news. I
have none to give out concerning our gracious----"

"Of Dame Illwill, I thought you spoke?" said John Shakespeare.

"Dame Illwill," said Doubletongue, contemptuously, "who cares about Dame
Illwill? and who, think ye, neighbour, would trouble themselves to stab
her?"

"Stab her!" said John Shakespeare, "who talked of stabbing?"

"I do," said Doubletongue; "its my own news, man. It's what I am come to
propound, to expound, and to promulgate. Only you will not bear with me.
The Queen is stabbed, killed, and murdered; our good and gracious Queen
hath been murdered, I say; now, there is my news."

"Heaven forbid!" said John Shakespeare, starting to his feet. "That
would bode ill luck to England at this moment. Heard you this report,
Master Cramboy?" he continued, addressing another of the townsmen who
entered at the moment.

"Which report, and whence derived, neighbour?" said Cramboy (who was
master of the free-school at Stratford); "for there be many rumours just
now come into town; the difficulty is to get the true one."

"That relating to the death of the Queen by the hand of an assassin,"
returned John Shakespeare, "and just now given us by neighbour
Doubletongue here."

"Where gott'st thou _that_ news, goodman Doubletongue?" said the
schoolmaster, with considerable asperity in his manner, "and how came
you to take upon yourself to promulgate, disseminate, and divulge such a
fable?"

"Nay," said Doubletongue, who stood somewhat in awe of the pedant, "I
know no harm in relating what I have just heard from neighbour Suddle of
our town."

"Out upon the barbarmonger," said Cramboy, "He is ever inventing one lie
or other; I advise thee to shut thy ears against all his monstrous
conceptions, and thy door against his visits. Know'st thou not, simple
mercer as thou art, that to imagine the Queen's death is treasonable as
to attempt _her life_. Ergo, thou hast committed, or rather aided in
spreading the contagion of matter containing treason, and art _particeps
criminis_ with that lying knave Suddle, who goeth about seeking whom he
may deceive."

"Nay," said Doubletongue, "if such be the case, I will myself go about
to retrace my steps, and gainsay all I have said."

"'Twere best you did so," said Cramboy, "with the addition, Master
Doubletongue, that for the future the good folks are never to believe
any rumours either you or Suddle may bring them. And harkee, neighbour,
when you are asked the real state of the case, you can tell your friends
that it is not the Queen who has been stabbed, but the Prince of Orange.
For that is the actual verity."

"Body o'me, but that is it, then, is it?" said Doubletongue: "well then,
there has been a royal personage murdered, after all. Grant that, my
veracity; grant that, and God be praised, therefore, I am not then
altogether a liar. But stay, an I obey your first injunctions, good
Master Cramboy, who will believe this second report at my hands? I shall
scarce be credited, methinks."

"So much the better, neighbour," said Cramboy; "the less men credit in
these days of trouble, always excepting holy writ, and the more they
keep to their own affairs, the better for them. And therefore go _not_
about _at all_; but sit ye down and fill your tankard, whilst I expound
what really hath happened."

"One way or other, we shall at last learn the rights of this matter,"
said John Shakespeare, laughing; "you said but now, Master Cramboy, that
the Prince of Orange hath been murdered?"

"At Delft, by the hands of a misguided fanatic, such is the awful story,
John Shakespeare. For what saith the book? 'Villany that is vigilant
will be an overmatch for virtue, if she slumbereth.' One Balthazar
Gerard, a Burgundian, it seems has long entertained this design against
the Prince of Orange, and, in order to destroy that famous restorer of
religious liberty, has, at the same time, sacrificed his own life. On my
word," continued the pedant, "these Jesuits are fearful fellows, and
will murder us all in the end. Nay, it is affirmed the Spanish arms are
making rapid progress in the Netherlands, and that Antwerp is ta'en.
Truly, the Prince of Parma carries all before him in those parts. Nay,
'tis further said the States are reduced to such extremity, that they
have sent an ambassador to London to offer to acknowledge our blessed
Queen for their sovereign, providing always she will grant them her
protection and assistance."

"And there it is," said Master Doubletongue, "there hath not been so
bloody a wild beast seen ravening, burning, and destroying us poor
Protestants, as that terrible Spaniard Philip since the world began.
Heaven keep us from his hot pincers, his thumb-screws, his iron boots,
his hostile intrigues, and cruel enterprises!"

"Amen, neighbour, say I," returned Master Cramboy, "though I marvel much
you will allow your tongue so much liberty, neighbour, seeing that, as I
firmly believe, Philip of Spain hath a paid spy and intelligencer in
every town of the kingdom. Nay, his wicked designs are said to be fully
directed against England at this moment."

"I trust no paid spy is to be found within my house, neighbour Cramboy,"
said John Shakespeare, laughing, "so that my worthy friend Doubletongue
is quite at liberty to rail upon the Spaniard to his heart's content
here."

"I meant nothing but in the way of caution to our good neighbour," said
the pedant, "and whose tongue would be much the better for an occasional
bridle, whilst the unrighteous are in sight. By the same token there are
at this moment some half-dozen strangers staying at the hostel of the
Checquers, whom none of us can fathom. Master Mumble, the headborough,
talks of paying them a visit, and putting them to their purgation.
Truly, we are in a dangerous condition, neighbour, and it behoves every
one to look well to the main chance."

"I think with you," said John Shakespeare, "that our prospects seem not
so fair as hitherto they have seemed. There is no question but that
Philip of Spain, with all the power of his united empire, will fall upon
England anon. His sole aim is the entire subjection of the Protestants.
But come, since your news hath driven off my wife and all her children,
let us even walk down to the Falcon and discuss these matters further.
'Tis now eight o'clock, and I dare be sworn the Dolphin parlour is well
filled with guests. Heaven keep our blessed Queen in its own safety, for
an these paid spies and jesuitical villains should hit her life, I fear
me we shall be devoured by the wolf of Spain."

So saying, Master Shakespeare rose, and accompanied by his son and two
fellow-townsmen, took their hats and sallied forth.

During the foregoing discussion so many bumpers had been tossed off by
the two newsmongers, that Master Doubletongue was becoming a trifle
double-sighted, whilst the pedant, who was sufficiently domineering over
his neighbours on most occasions, was now rendered doubly important and
overbearing.

"Methinks, Will," whispered the elder Shakespeare to his son, "you had
better give Master Doubletongue the aid of your guidance, lest he
measure his length in the gutter. He seems somewhat flustered, and
inclined to quarrel with the road for not being of sufficient width."

"Thank ye, good William, thank ye," said the mercer, as he availed
himself of the youth's assistance, "the causeway seems progressive
to-night, the stones wherewith it is paved, ever and anon, do rise up to
salute my nostrils, and there they come again."

"Now that's what I call a circumstance," said Cramboy, "neighbour
Doubletongue has been fuddled every night before curfew, for the last
twenty years of his life, and has not yet learnt to carry his liquor
seemly. An the watch pass us they will be scandalized at his condition,
and take us all up for being drunk at unseasonable hours in the streets.
I pr'ythee, good William, convey him to his own door, and deposit him in
safety there."




CHAPTER IX.

THE TAVERN.


When the pair reached the Falcon, they found a goodly assemblage in the
"Dolphin" parlour of that hostel. This apartment was appropriated to a
certain clique of jolly companions in the town, who often met together
after business hours,--a sapient and most self-important fraternity,
which in our own times would have been designated a sort of club. They
were indifferently ignorant upon all subjects unconnected with their
respective trades and callings, and according to their ignorance was
their importance and self-conceit.

Matters connected with their own town and county it was their especial
privilege, they thought, to discuss, but affairs in general, and the
politics of the world, were also brought under consideration. Their
oracle, or as we should at present term him, president, was one Master
Michael Teazle, the clothier, who, in his wisdom and his care, sought in
his various harangues to "dress the threadbare state of the commonwealth
and turn it, and set a new nap upon it,"--generally concluding, like
Cade, that the Queen's council were no good workmen, and that he
himself, being a working-man, could best understand the management of
the State.

This man was, in fact, a somewhat extraordinary individual, and in
possession of considerable talent; one who, in our own times, would have
most likely been either a popular sectarian preacher, or a violent
demagogue. But in Elizabeth's day, there being no proper vent for the
effusion of such a spirit, he was merely the oracle of his gossiping
society of his own town. Too indolent for real and useful work, he
neglected his own business to spy into the affairs of his neighbours,
and too dissipated for any profitable employment; except that he was
kept from utter ruin by an industrious wife, he would, with all his wise
saws, have starved.

The piece of news which had in the present instance reached Stratford,
had called forth from Master Teazle a considerable harangue upon the
state of the country, and the imminent danger Her Majesty's government,
her own life, and the safety of themselves individually, were exposed to
from the intrigues of the Catholics; and in taking upon him to expound
what _had_ already been done, he took upon him also to say what _should_
be done.

"I maintain, my masters all," said he, "that these Jesuits should be
pistolled like mad dogs wherever one can light upon them; for look ye,
are they not educated, and brought up, and fed, and nourished, in
superstition and bigotry? Are they not infused with a bitter hatred
against our Queen, whom they treat as an usurper, a schismatic, a
heretic, a persecutor of the orthodox, and one excommunicated and made
horrible by the _ridiculous_ Pope." Here he stopped and looked around
with great importance. "Nay," he resumed, "look but upon this affair of
the Prince of Orange! Sedition, rebellion, and assassination are the
expedients by which they effect their purposes."

"For mine own part," said Master Lambe, the glover, "I know not
precisely in what consists a Jesuit."

"Why, then, lament therefore," said Teazle, "since not to know _in what_
consists a Jesuit, is not to know the danger to be apprehended _from_ a
Jesuit."

"Expound unto us, neighbour," said goodman Hyde, the tanner, "what is
your version of such a wild beast?"

"Wild beast is a bad term to apply to a Jesuit," said Teazle, "as you
will see by the story. To propound what is a Jesuit, we must e'en go
back to the order of Jesuits founded at Douay by Philip of Spain; and
thus it is:--he erected a seminary for Catholics to send their children
to, in order that they might be brought up, and educated with a view to
the crown of martyrdom. Neither to be deterred by danger nor fatigue
from maintaining their principles. And into the breasts of these pupils
is instilled the most inveterate hatred against Protestant England in
general, and Stratford town in particular; and to our blessed Queen
nothing but poison, steel, and perdition. Ahem!"

"There art thou wrong, brother," said Master Cramboy. "The order of
Jesuits was erected when the Pope perceived that his lazy monks and
beggarly friars sufficed no longer to defend the Church, and that the
unquiet spirit of the age required something more keen, active, and
erudite to defend it."

"Well, neighbour, well," said Teazle, (who was generally somewhat in awe
of the learning of the pedant), "I sit corrected. Be it, however, as it
may, you will bear with me in holding that prevarication, and every
stratagem which serves their ghostly purposes, are the especial
privileges of the Order."

"Thereafter, as may be," said Cramboy; "we will discuss that point anon.
Meanwhile, thou art right, insomuch that the seminary you have
mentioned, and which the Cardinal of Lorraine has imitated at Rheims,
and the Pope has also followed the example of at Rome, are all under the
direction of Jesuits--violent, intolerant, and dangerous. And,
therefore, may Heaven bless our glorious Queen, who put that caitiff
Campion to the rack so lately, and broke his bones under the very nose
of the Duke of Alencon, whilst he was making suit for her hand in
marriage."

"A decent hint to him of the sort of martyrdom he might expect in case
his suit was a successful one," said John Shakespeare, laughing.

"A grievous martyrdom had all England suffered, an the French duke had
prospered," said Teazle.

"'Twere best not to pursue that theme, neighbour," said Master Lambe,
"lest we run into dangerous ground, like Charles Arundel Stubbs, of
Lincoln's Inn, who wrote a book, and called it 'The Gulph in which
England was to be swallowed by the French marriage,' and lost his right
hand, as a libeller, for his pains."

"A severe sentence upon a loyal subject," said Cramboy, "for look ye how
Stubbs bore his punishment! I was there, and saw him suffer. He took his
hat off with his left hand, and waving it over his head, cried, 'God
save good Queen Elizabeth!' Methinks the right hand of such a man would
have been better unlopped. It might have done good service hereafter."

"Go to, my masters, 'enough said is soonest mended,' as the old saw
goes. An I were the Queen, after what has happened, I would take Spain
by the beard," said Teazle; "for look ye, my masters all, how that king
of red-hot ploughshares and burning pincers groweth more powerful daily.
Already hath he made himself lord of Portugal, and gained settlements in
the Indies; not only arrogating to himself the commerce of those
regions, but all the princes of Italy, and even the Pope of Rome, are
reduced to subjection beneath his sway. Austria and Germany, too, are
connected with, and ready to supply him with troops at his beck. See,
too, how the bloated toad sitteth upon his throne, swelling and
sweltering in wealth as well as bigotry; with all the treasures of the
Western Ind in his diadem."

"O' my word, neighbour," said Master Lambe, "an such be the case I
should be chary, an I were the Queen, of chasing such a swollen reptile,
lest he spit poison upon me, and burnt me up with the breath of his
powerful nostrils; methinks, an I were Her Majesty, I should be careful
how I gave my crown to the chance of battle with such an enemy."

"Go to, neighbour," returned Teazle, "thou lookest but along thy nose,
and no farther. See'st thou not that what _must_ come _will_ come; and
_will_ come, may come when most _unwelcome_. Now, an I were the Queen, I
would take Philip of Spain by the nose at once, ere the Netherlands
relapse again into servitude, assailed as they are by those veteran
armies employed against them. By my manhood, I say Elizabeth should at
once trust to her people, and assault the whole force of the Catholic
monarch ere it grow so great that it will swallow up the world. Nay, an
I were appointed general-in-chief, I would conduct an army over to
Holland, and deliver the country from the danger at once."

"Perhaps, neighbour," said John Shakespeare, "you have heard a rumour
that some such measure has in truth been thought of. A power of
dauntless spirits are, it is said, at this moment assembling under the
Earl of Leicester."

"A fico for the Earl of Leicester," said Teazle; "pr'ythee what sort of
a soldier is he to oppose against the experienced captains and sturdy
infantry of Spain? Now, an I had been called to name the man fit for
such command I should have named----"

"Thyself," said Cramboy. "Ah, ah! a very pretty piece of soldiership we
should have in thee."

"Thou hast said it, not I, neighbour," returned Teazle. "_But_, an I had
said myself, I had at least named one quite as equal to the emergency of
the case as the man of rings and carcanets, of broaches and feathers,
thou hast just named."

"Methinks 'twere wise not to pursue such comparison further," said
Master Lambe; "'twere best for those to speak civily of the bear who are
such near neighbours to his hold, lest the ragged staff reach our
coxcombs."

"What gentlemen of note are engaged in this expedition?" inquired
Cramboy.

"I hear," said John Shakespeare, "that he carries with him a glorious
retinue, being accompanied by the young Earl of Essex, Lords Audley and
North, Sir William Russell, Sir Thomas Shirly, Sir Arthur Basset, Sir
Walter Waller, and Sir Gervase Clifton, added to which five hundred
gentlemen ride in his select troop."

"Still do I maintain," said Teazle, "that the selection of my Lord of
Leicester is not a good one; he possesses neither courage nor capacity
equal to the task, and were I in presence of the Queen, with the Earl
leaning at the back of her chair, I would say the same."

"And how would you speak of those in commission with him?" inquired
Cramboy, "To begin with Essex, what think you of him?"

"As of one better to be led than to lead. Essex is a brave boy
doubtless, and a clever, but then he is rash, headstrong, and
unweighing. Curb him never so little and he flings up in your teeth.
Give him his head and he knocks out his own brains."

"What of Lords Audley and North?"

"Put into the scale against the other one and their weight will about
weigh against his lightness. Ergo, the three together are as naught."

"And how say ye to Sir William Russell?"

"But so so. Marry a good blade and a stout man, a proper fellow of his
hands. But for brains the accompt is very minute indeed."

"How of Sir Arthur Basset?"

"As of one fitter to feat in a couranto, at court, than trail a pike in
the Low Countries."

"Nay, then, 'tis vain to say more," said Cramboy, "since of the whole
five hundred in my Lord of Leicester's troops I dare be sworn, in thy
opinion, there is not one fit to wield a rapier or poise a caliver."

"Thou hast again said it, neighbour, and not I," returned Teazle.
"Though in sooth, an I had, I had not been far out."

"'Tis well then," said Cramboy, "that in maritime affairs a better
selection hath been made. Heard ye, my masters all, that Sir Francis
Drake hath been appointed Admiral, with a fleet of twenty sail and two
thousand three hundred volunteers, besides seamen to serve in it? They
have already sailed for the West Indies against the Spaniards. How like
ye that piece of news?"

"That likes me somewhat better," said Teazle, "and I can venture to
predict some good to accrue therefrom. Drake is the man to make the
settlements smoke for it. He will burn, sack, and destroy all along the
Spanish main, whilst the other will but make a sort of harnessed masque
through the Low Countries. Such is my poor opinion, and time will prove
in how much it is correct. So fill a cup to Sir Francis Drake, another
for our gracious Queen, and one more for Stratford town. Huzza! huzza!
huzza!"

After this loyal outbreak there was a short pause. This was at last
broken by neighbour Dismal, who (albeit he drank his quantum at these
meetings) seldom spoke much, and when he did so generally threw a gloom
over the whole assemblage. He always had, however, his _one say_, which
was a sort of concentration of the worst piece of news he could collect
for the nonce. And as he was a man of undoubted veracity, unless he was
pretty well assured of the truth of what he uttered, he never uttered it
at all.

This usually gave his _one wisdom_ a most startling air of gloom and
horror, and when he rose to speak, or even coughed his preliminary ahem,
he was honoured by the most startling silence. On the present occasion
he prepared to broach the subject matter with peculiar solemnity,
actually rising from his seat, and, as he steadied himself with both
hands upon the table, delivering himself, somewhat after the following
lively fashion.

"Neighbours all," he said, "I have listened to the discussion of the
foregoing matter with considerable interest. Our good neighbour, Teazle,
hath handled the subject of the proposed expedition in very able style.
He hath been replied to quite as cleverly by my learned and worthy
Fellow-townsman, Cramboy. Such discussions are, however, at the present
moment, methinks, better left to those whom they most concern, inasmuch
as subjects of nearer interest to _ourselves_, it doth appear to me,
more nearly concern _ourselves_. Neighbours, I know I have been accused
of being a kill joy, a melancholy man. Some call me Goodman Death: and
the little boys hoot at me, as I walk at night, and say, 'There goeth
Goodman Bones.' Nevertheless, I have been merry twice or once ere now. I
was merry on the day I married Mistress Dismal, and I was merry the day
I buried her. I was also merry when my father died, and left me in
possession of his business. But I cannot say I am merry just at this
time. Neighbours and jovial friends, I will conclude my speech briefly
and heartily. By the same token, I wish you all your healths, and, at
the same time, hope we may some of us meet here again next week _well_
and _happy_. How far we are likely to do so is another matter, and of
that you will be better able to judge when I tell you that The Plague is
in Stratford-upon-Avon at the present moment!"




CHAPTER X.

THE CHURCHYARD OF STRATFORD-UPON-AVON.


After young Shakespeare had safely deposited Goodman Doubletongue at his
own door, and left him in charge of the good housewife, he turned his
steps towards the Falcon, with the intent of rejoining his father there,
and hearing the news of the town; for the son and sire were upon the
delightful terms we sometimes, though not often, may observe between
parent and child.

In both the elements of high character were so mixed that there could be
no drawback to their love: they were more like companions of the same
age than father and son. The same tastes, the same pursuits, the same
high spirit and honourable feelings pervaded both.

Certes, the mind of one was of a far more extraordinary character than
that of the other, but that in no degree lessened the feeling of respect
and love young Shakespeare felt for his father, and that father's
example and influence helped to form the man.

Always the creature of impulse, the youth, after conveying Master
Doubletongue home, as he neared the Falcon, suddenly resolved to turn
his steps in another direction; and, in place of listening, in the hot
sanded parlour of the hostel, to the discussions of the Stratford
wise-acres, whilst he felt the influence of the balmy breeze of night
upon his cheek, he passed the hostel and strolled towards the outskirts
of the town. He felt indeed that the hour was more fitted for communion
with his own thoughts than listening to the ridiculous dogmas and
politics of the goodly fellowship of the Falcon.

Since his visit to Clopton a new scene had opened to him, and his
feelings had become somewhat changed. He had beheld, nay, become
intimately acquainted with a being of a superior order to any he had yet
met with, and in the lovely and amiable Charlotte Clopton he had found
that perfect specimen of female excellence which his imagination had,
even at this early period of his life, loved to picture. Nay, perhaps,
had he not in youth thus beheld some such bright excellence--some such
reality of his conceptions--we might have wanted those delineations of
grace and purity, those fairest flowers of perfect excellence--the
Viola, Miranda, Desdemona, Juliet, and the sweetest Imogene of his
maturer years.

To see and to feel the influence of companionship even for a couple of
days with the fair Charlotte, so soft in manner, so fair in form and
feature, so anxious to express her feelings of gratitude for service
rendered, and not to love her, was impossible. And during his visit the
bright face of the young lad might have been observed beaming with
admiration and affectionate regard upon Charlotte as she sang and
accompanied herself upon the spinnet, and which, had it been noticed by
her betrothed, might have perhaps caused some sparks of jealousy and
uneasiness.

It was lucky, however, in young Shakespeare's case, that the great mind
of the youth came to his aid in this situation, and whilst in company
with her of whom even a previous glance had called forth his admiration.
During his visit he had also comprehended the politics of the family he
was introduced amongst. He beheld the thorough gentleman, the confiding
honourable old cavalier, the knight _sans peur et sans reproche_, in Sir
Hugh Clopton. He saw the youthful esquire, the lusty bachelor, the free
open-hearted, brave, and devoted servant, the lover, whose whole soul
and every thought were upon his fair mistress, in Walter Arderne; whilst
in that cunningest pattern of excelling nature, the lovely Charlotte,
he saw one far removed from his own sphere of life. So much so, indeed,
that "it were all one, that he should love some bright particular star,"
"and think to wed it," she was so much above him. So thought the modest
youth. And yet again it was easy for him also to observe that the strong
affection of the lady's suitor was unrequited, and his feelings
unreturned, save by those of esteem and friendship. Under these
circumstances, we say, the strong sense of the youth came to his aid,
and, if it did not hinder him from falling desperately in love, it
somewhat curbed his feelings, and hindered him from discovering them to
the object of his admiration. He felt the barb of the arrow rankle in
his heart; but his pride and proper feeling helped him to subdue, and
conceal the smart. So true it is that--

          "As in the sweetest bud
    The eating canker dwells, so eating love
    Inhabits in the finest wits of all."

We fear it must be acknowledged that the youthful poet, at this period
of his life, was of a most untamed and wandering disposition; that his
life and his employments were rather desultory; and that when once his
steps turned towards the wild scenery which so abounded around his
native town, all was forgotten of home duties, and engagements
pertaining thereto.

This must, however, be excused in one whose mind was of so extraordinary
a character.

Amongst other haunts which young Shakespeare loved to frequent at times,
and even when the shadows of night gave a more solemn feeling to its
precincts, was the churchyard of his native town. And perhaps those who
have lingered, and looked upon that sweet scene during night's silent
reign, whilst the moon has silvered the tops of the surrounding trees,
and the waters of the Avon mirrored the beautiful structure on its
banks, will better understand the feelings of young Shakespeare in such
a place. Things more than mortal seem to steal upon the heart, and
thoughts of early and shadowy recollection to haunt the mind.

Let those who have not visited this locality at "the witching hour,"
take a stroll into the ancient churchyard of Stratford. Let them feel
the influence of the man everywhere around them, and imagine him at such
a time. Let them look up at those demoniac heads which the cunning
architects of the Norman period have carved on every coigne of vantage,
together with the shadowy grandeur of the walls and buttresses.

Let them glance over the verdant mounds and the mossy tombstones of the
silent tenants around, and then ask themselves what were the thoughts
engendered in such locality? Have they not some dark and shadowy
conceptions of Elsineur? Doth not the postern of the old churchyard wall
open to admit the Monkish procession for the obsequies of the fair
Ophelia, with all the pomp and circumstance of the times? Do they not
see before them the whole scene, and hear the words of the distracted
Laertes as he stands beside the open grave of his sister:--

    "Lay her i' the earth,
    And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
    May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,
    A minist'ring angel shall my sister be,
    When thou liest howling."

Or, in that moonlight scene of beauty, and whilst the reverential awe it
engenders steals upon the heart, doth not some remembrance of Juliet's
tomb, the hour, and the deeds therein performed, float over the mind,
and the words of him who sleeps so near recur?

Those, we say, who can feel this impression, can best imagine the
influence the hour, and the hallowed spot, had upon the youthful mind of
him who in after-life was to draw upon such feelings in order to produce
the scenes we have mentioned. At the present time, and whilst young
Shakespeare took his way through the churchyard, the feeling of awe
which is sure to pervade the mind, more or less, in such a place, was
peculiarly impressed upon him. It seemed a presentiment of some evil to
come, which he could not shake off. He stopped and gazed around, and a
chaos of wild thoughts and imaginings coursed one another through his
brain as he did so. Within that sacred pile the knightly and the noble,
the soldier of the cross, the fierce Norman, and the proud Churchman
were entombed,--"_hearsed in death_,"--the very men who had lived in the
days he was so fond of dwelling on; those fierce times of contention and
civil butchery.

The associations connected with such a scene are indeed peculiar; the
beings of a former age in all the panoply of war re-appear, and (as we
gaze upon the architectural beauty of the holy edifices they have left
behind them) we love to imagine their steel-clad forms,--their deep
devotion; whilst remembrance of their heroic acts in the field is mixed
up with the superstition and feelings of their day.

Whilst the youthful Shakespeare gazed upon the mounds, and the mossy
tombstones, and the soft flowing river; as he listened to the dreary
whisper of the breeze through the trees, a feeling of awe crept over
him, and his imagination reverted to the world of spirits--

    "When churchyards yawned and graves stood tenantless."

The living stood alone amongst the dead. Slowly he took his way, that
extraordinary youth: his thoughts and conceptions seemed a wonder to
himself; at one moment he gazed upwards at the o'erhanging firmament,
"that majestical roof, fretted with golden fire;" then he stood upon the
margin of the flowing river, and watched its waves, as they passed
onwards and were lost in the distance, like the hours passing into
eternity, and mingling with those before the flood. _What were those
thoughts_ at that hour and period of his life? who could write them, or
could he himself have described them? _We think not_--perhaps he may
have himself given us something nearly akin. He may _have_ then thought
with his own Prospero--

    "The cloud capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
    The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
    Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
    And like this unsubstantial pageant faded,
    Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
    As dreams are made of, and our little life
    Is rounded with a sleep."

Man holds strange communion with himself in such a sanctuary. "The
present horror of the time suits with it." There is even a sort of
fascination to the spot, and a longing, a yearning after something
supernatural. Even the hoot of the owl, or the cloistered flight of the
bat, hath a charm in character.

Such, perhaps, were the thoughts of this youth, for he lingered long in
the churchyard wrapt in his own imaginings. At length, as he heard an
approaching footstep along the path, he slowly turned from the sacred
edifice, leaped the wall, and sought the woods of Charlecote.

As young Shakespeare left the churchyard, the person whose approach had
interrupted his meditations slowly walked up to the porch of the church.

As the new comer turned, on reaching the porch, the clock from the tower
sounded the first hour after midnight; a deep and clanking note which
swam over the adjoining fields and was lost in fainter replications.
"'Tis the hour," said he, "and now for the man."

The midnight visitor was apparently a tall figure, wearing the long
riding cloak of the period, and which completely enveloped his form,
whilst his broad-brimmed hat, and the sable plumes with which it was
ornamented, as effectually shadowed his features.

"'Tis the hour," he said, as the iron tongue sounded from the tower.
"And now for this unsafe partisan." A low whistle (as if from some
person lying perdue without the wall of the churchyard) was almost
immediately heard, and in a few minutes another footstep was also to be
distinguished as if from the town.

The figure in the cloak immediately advanced towards the approaching
sounds, and as he did so he freed his right arm from his cloak, and,
pulling it more completely over the left shoulder, felt that his rapier
was easy in the sheath, that his other weapons were free to his hand,
and also that the dagger in his girdle was handy to his grasp.

Readiness in the use of the various weapons (at that time a part of the
costume of a completely dressed cavalier) was one of the accomplishments
of a gentleman, and the steps and bearing of the person we have
described (although but partially distinguishable in the shade of the
tall trees of the churchyard) proclaimed that he was a person of some
condition.

He walked slowly and deliberately down the path towards the gate, so
that by the time he had traversed half its length, the swinging sound of
its opening and closing proclaimed that the person advancing had passed
into the churchyard. The moon at this moment had become hidden behind
one of the dark clouds which seemed to threaten a coming storm, so that
(in the deepened gloom of the avenue) the tall cavalier (although the
closing gate and approaching footsteps proclaimed the proximity of the
new comer) could not at the moment distinguish him.

There seemed no desire for concealment on the part of either, as they
walked boldly past each other. Only a close observer might have observed
in the motions of each considerable caution and distrust. The hand
closed over the hilt of the half-drawn dagger, and each gave the other
what sailors term a wide berth in passing.

The gloom of the place, at this moment indeed, completely hindered the
features of either party from being distinguished even in passing;
nevertheless, as they moved by, each stared the other in the face with a
sharp and piercing eye, and after having passed a few paces, both
simultaneously wheeled round and retraced their steps. As they did so,
the first comer repeated in a low tone a single word, as if to himself,
which was immediately answered by the other, and both turned; a sign
then passed between them; some mysterious signal, perhaps, like the
words they had uttered, only known to the parties themselves.

"Gilbert Charnock!" said the first comer. "Is't not he?"

"The same," returned the other; "and dost not thou answer to-night to
the name of Gifford?"

"Right," said the first; "you have come at the hour named."

"I am sworn to do so," replied Charnock.

"And are you armed to do as sworn to do?" inquired Gifford.

"I am, if on trial the object of our meeting here is found to be
dangerous to the cause."

"He has been found so," said Gifford.

"And yet our friend. One joined heart and hand in that cause. And yet to
die by our hands."

"Either he or ourselves, besides others implicated in the plot: nay, the
cause itself demands the sacrifice."

"And he will be here to meet us?" inquired Charnock.

"He has sworn it."

"Which of us is to deal with him?"

"Why this question? The lot was drawn by you."

"Enough: and he is even now in concealment at Sir Hugh Clopton's. Is't
not so?"

"So far I traced him by the mad acts he hath committed since leaving
France, and by which conduct our faction is placed in jeopardy."

"But come; it still wants several minutes of the appointed time. Walk
aside here, and I will tell you in how much the man is unfortunate in
his position. You know the circumstance of his coming amongst us, and
how he undertook to be the instrument, the steel, the dagger, as it
were, by which our arch enemy was to be reached."

"I do, and how he refused to share the glory of the enterprise with
others, and resolving to take the whole upon himself, suddenly and
secretly set off, without further circumstance."

"There shone out the dangerous madness of the man," returned the other,
"and by-and-by comes a reaction, by which we are all endangered, as
thus: it appears that on his arrival in England this Parry was as
suddenly seized with scruples, and under influence thereof he goes about
to certain gentlemen, to advise with them as to the propriety of his
undertaking this pious act. Luckily, it seems, he hath, as yet,
consulted with men who are deemed at least safe, or we ourselves had
scarce been here to-night. By some he was told that the enterprise was
criminal and impious; whilst others, again, applauded it. Nay, even
Ragazoni, the Nuncio, and the Pope himself (to whom he wrote a letter),
desired him to persist in his resolution."

"Methinks that such authority might have satisfied his scruples."

"Not a whit as you shall hear; for so deeply did the fiend palter with
him in favour of the heretic Elizabeth, that even when he had
opportunity twice, thrice, nay, a dozen times repeated, he could not
strike the blow."

"The evil one surely mounts guard over that iron-hearted woman," said
Gifford, "or she could never have escaped the many designs set on foot
to cut her off."

"One would think it," returned Charnock, "and in the instance I am
speaking of, she seems to have been specially guarded by some familiar;
inasmuch as although Parry, albeit he managed matters so well that he
gained an introduction and a private audience of the Queen, no sooner
did he find himself in the presence, than his scruples returned with so
much force, that he commenced an exhortation in place of driving his
dagger to her heart; and after praying of her to tender her life, and
grant us Catholics more indulgence in the exercise of our religion, he
actually informed her there were numerous conspiracies at that moment
formed against her."

"And how escaped he being apprehended and examined?" inquired Gifford.

"Ah, there consists the marvel," returned Charnock; "but it seems the
Queen looked upon him as a harmless maniac, and took little account of
what he uttered. She trusted for safety to God and to her people's love,
she said, and so dismissed him."

"Indeed," continued Charnock, "it seems then, that the interview for the
time completely prostrated all Parry's energies; and lest he should be
tempted, as he owned, by the opportunities he found of approaching her
ere his words could have effect, he always came to court unprovided with
any offensive weapon."

"And then he afterwards relapsed into his former violence; was't not
so?"

"It was. He returned to France, saw the Nuncio and Ragazoni, became
again confirmed in his first intent, and has again recrossed to England,
where his madness and his extravagant conduct are likely to compromise
all his friends. Nay, an he is not speedily silenced, we shall assuredly
perish by the gibbet."

During the foregoing conversation of the conspirators, thus met in the
seclusion of the churchyard of Stratford, (a trysting place they had
fixed on as more likely than any other to be unmolested by the prying
eyes and ears of the curious,) they had slowly traversed round the
sacred edifice; and now, as the taller stranger finished his discourse,
they arrived at the north porch, and stood concealed in its shadow.

"We seek an edifice dedicated to the service of religion for a strange
and awful purpose," said Gifford, as he gazed along the footpath leading
from the church.

"Since it is to serve the purposes of the true religion," said Charnock,
"let us trust to the greatness of the cause to sanctify our doings. Hast
thou any scruples?"

"None," said Gifford. "But time passes. How, if our man fail?"

"That would bode us ill," said Charnock; "though I think it unlikely
that he will do so. Between the hours of one and two was the time I
appointed him to be here, and he swore to me that he would not fail."

"And how didst thou get opportunity of speech with him?" inquired
Gifford.

"By following him to Clopton soon after his arrival; where I gained an
interview, and bade him hither in the name of our leader. Hark, the
signal; 'tis he!" and the two conspirators advanced along the path,
whilst at the same time footsteps were heard.




CHAPTER XI.

THE STRATFORD LAWYER.


The arrival of strangers to take up their abode for any length of time
in such a town as Stratford-upon-Avon, always furnished matter of
curiosity and speculation amongst the inhabitants. The neighbours were
known to each other so well, and there was comparatively so little
travel, that a certain degree of suspicion attached to all new-comers in
those dangerous days. When any of the townsmen had business, even a few
miles off, it was usual for them to arrange matters go that two or three
might travel in company. Neighbour Fustian, the hosier, having business
in Warwick, agreed to travel the road in company with neighbour Lambe,
the glover, whose trade made him a visitor to Coventry, whilst the
latter stayed the convenience of mine host of the Falcon, who was,
peradventure, bound for the latter town, and all three, mounted and
armed, went and returned in company, rather than trust purse and person
singly to the chances of the road.

Robbing on the highway, although by no means so common as in the
preceding reign, was still frequent. The woods were thick in this part
of Warwickshire, and the gentlemen of the shade found it easy to elude
pursuit after a highway robbery. Nay, but a few short years before, and
during the York and Lancaster feuds, which had deluged the land with
blood; what with disbanded men-at-arms, thieves, and caitiffs of one
sort or other, the roads were but cut-throat defiles, and the country
round a continued battle-field.

So that during the troublous reign of Henry VI. it had been especially
ordered, that between the towns of Coventry, Warwick, and
Stratford-upon-Avon, the highways should be widened, by cutting down
trees on either hand, in order that travellers and wayfarers might have
more room to defend themselves against the numerous robbers and caitiffs
infesting those parts.

On the morning following the transactions we have recorded in the
foregoing chapter, there were several subjects of interest commented
upon and discussed in the little back room which constituted the office
of one Pouncet Grasp, the head-lawyer of the town. One was the sojourn
of several strangers, whom no one knew anything about, at one of the
hostels: another was a dark and alarming rumour of a suspicious sort of
illness having broken out in the suburbs: and another was the
circumstance of a man, having all the appearance of a person of
condition, having been found, stabbed in several places, and lying, with
the pockets of his doublet rifled, a stiffened and unhandsome corse, in
the road leading to the ferry beyond the church.

Master Pouncet Grasp himself was seated upon a high stool near the
window of his office, which looked into a green and bowery garden,
having at its further extremity a most pleasant bowling-green; the river
just to be distinguished in the distance beyond, amongst the marshy
meadows.

Some two or three clerks were seated in different parts of the
apartment, all busily engaged, pen in hand, scrawling strange
hieroglyphics upon certain sheets of parchment before them, making a
dreadful sound of incessant scribbling with their pens.

Master Grasp himself, the monarch of all he surveyed, and an especial
tyrant over the unfortunate clerks he presided over, was the only
personage in that small apartment who seemed to have freedom of thought
and motion, and license to take his attention from the crackling
parchments beneath his nose.

If our readers have ever taken the trouble to picture to themselves the
clerk of Chatham, with his pen and ink-horn hung round his neck, they
will have some idea of the figure of our Stratford lawyer in his own
office. Only that, whereas we imagine the clerk of Chatham to have been
a sort of dreamy, drawling person, Master Pouncet was rather more swift,
sententious, and mercurial. Law had sharpened his wit, irritated his
temper, levelled his honesty, and urged his avarice.

Any one to have watched him when alone in his glory, and only seen by
his clerks, would have taken him to be half insane. The moment, however,
a client or a stranger appeared, he put on a new face and a demeanour
suited to the occasion; appearing wise in council, amiable in
disposition, and staid and sober in manners, whereas before he had been
like a chattering ape irritated with a hot chestnut.

"Now do I wonder who these strangers may be," he said, leaving off his
writing and jumping round in his seat; "truly I must run down to goodman
Doubletongue and confer with him on the subject. Will Shakespeare," he
said, jumping back again, "get thee down to----Ah, I forgot that
pestilent Shakespeare hath not been to the office for a whole week. Ah,
the caitiff! Oh, the villain! See, too," he said, opening his desk and
searching amongst his papers, "the vile rubbish he inditeth when he is
here in place of copying what is set before him. What! you grin there,
do ye? driving wights that ye are. Grin, my masters, _whilst ye work_,
an ye list. But, an ye _leave off_ to grin, see an I brain ye not with
this ruler. Shakespeare--ah, a pretty name that, and a precious hounding
scamp is the fellow that owns it. Here's goodly stuff toward! Here's
loves of the gods and goddesses for you! Here's Venus, Adonis, Cytherea,
hid in the rushes; Proserpina and Pluto, besides half a dozen heathen
deities, devils, satyrs, and demigods, all dancing the hays in a lump!"
So saying, Pouncet Grasp turned over the leaves of a sort of manuscript
poem, written upon a quantity of backs of letters and dirty sheets of
paper, and, after glancing through the contents, sent them fluttering
and flying at the head of one of his clerks.

"There," said he, "that's the way my ink is spoiled, and my documents
destroyed. I suppose now, that your friend and crony there," he
continued, addressing himself to the young man at whose head he had
thrown the manuscript, "I suppose your unintelligible friend calls that
incomprehensible and unaccountable rubbish a sort of rough draught of a
poem. I'm not learned in such productions, but methinks he that wrote of
such lewd doings ought to be whipped at the cart's tail, or put in the
stocks at least."

"I was not aware," said the youth addressed, (and who under cover of his
industry had been laughing all the time Master Grasp was reading the
poem), "I was not aware William Shakespeare has ever written a poem
about the gods."

"_Si-lence_," cried Grasp, sticking his pen behind his ear and looking
fierce, as he wheeled round and faced about, first to one and then to
another of his clerks. "_Si-lence_, ye scoundrel scribblers, or by the
Lord Harry----"

The clerk, who knew from experience the irritable nature of his
taskmaster, took the hint and redoubled his exertions with the pen and
parchment before him, only occasionally, as he stole a furtive glance at
his companions and observed the lawyer's attention in another direction,
lolling out his tongue or executing a hideous grimace at him.

"I pr'ythee, sirs, inform me," said Grasp, again interrupting the
silence he had commanded, "when was that mad-headed ape last in this
office?"

"Of whom was it your pleasure to speak?" inquired the youth who had
received the compliment of the poem at his head.

"Of whom should I speak, sinner that I am, but of him of whom I _last
spoke_--that incomprehensible, uncontrollable varlet--that scribbler of
bad verse--that idle companion of thine?"

"He was here but yesterday," said the lad.

"Yesterday!" said Grasp, "why I _saw_ him not; I _heard_ him not;
neither did he indite a line of that I left for him to work at."

"He was fetched away almost as soon as he came," said the lad.

"Fetched away! who should fetch William Shakespeare away I trow, and
from my house, without leave, licence, and permission granted _from_ and
_by_ me to take the person of the said Shakespeare?"

"Master Walter Arderne, from the Hall, called for him, and they went
away together," said the lad.

"Master Arderne, an called for one of my lads here! why what's in the
wind now I trow, and why sent ye not to the Falcon for me, ye sinner?"

"He asked not for you, sir," returned the lad, "he asked for William
Shakespeare."

"Now the fiend take thee for a stupid dolt," said Grasp; "what an if he
did ask for William Shakespeare, of course it was me he wished to confer
with; only, as he found I was out, he inquired for the first idiot who
had sense enough to take his message, and the chance fell upon the
greatest scrape-grace and the most consummate ape in the whole lot.

"Miserable sinner that I am! That varlet hath forgotten to deliver the
message he received from Master Arderne. Who knoweth the import of such
message, so entrusted, and confided, and given, and--and--lost perhaps
for ever?----Ah! and----Peradventure Sir Hugh Clopton hath been seized
with apoplexy, and I have been sent for to confer about his will, or
mayhap Master Arderne hath wished for my advice, anent drawing up the
articles of marriage betwixt himself and that most beautified of young
ladies his cousin.----Or, peradventure the match may have been broken
off, and he may wish for my advice on the let and hindrance thereof.
Nay, it is impossible to say in how much I am deteriorated and damaged,
both in purse, person, and reputation by the mistakes, misconduct, and
mismanagement of that pestilent conglomeration of vices, idleness, and
villany--that scurvy companion, that ill favoured----"

"William Shakespeare, I suppose you mean," said that youth himself, who
at the moment entered unperceived, and stood smiling at the door whilst
he listened to the scurrility of Grasp. "Nay, finish your sentence, and
fill up the measure of your abuse, master-mine," said Shakespeare,
advancing towards Grasp, who seemed struck all of a heap by his
presence. "I have heard it is your pleasure to rail upon me behind my
back, and, as I well know I deserve some slight portion of your anger, I
am as well content to receive it myself, in place of its being put upon
these lads, my fellows."

"Nay, good William," said the lawyer (whose excitement seemed to have
vanished in a most unaccountable manner, in the presence of his clerk);
"I named you not, I meant you not, I spoke not your name, that I am
aware of. At least not at this precise moment. Did I name our good
William lads? Did I couple his name--?"

"If you did, I care not," said the youth, "since (as I have before said)
I feel myself in some sort deserving of your censure. The law suiteth
not my disposition, neither can I give my mind up to its dry study. I
wrong thee, Master Grasp, when I attempt to serve thee, and I should use
oceans of ink and reams of paper ere I learnt even how to serve a writ
properly. It is easier to pretend to be what we are not, than hide what
we really are, Master Grasp, and I will be content to be under
imputation of those ill names you have given me, provided you add not
lawyer to the number; only, in as much as you have favoured me with
those terms, we must be content to part. I do not _beat thee_, Master
Grasp, because thou art weak in body, and somewhat old; but I do warn
thee not to couple my name in future, when you speak of me, with those
opprobrious epithets you have just used. I am no villain at least, and
so farewell for ever, Master Grasp." And Shakespeare turned abruptly and
left the office.

"Now that's what I call a circumstance," said the lawyer; "here's a
large mouth, here's a goodly gentleman: a stipendiary, a stripling, a
mere school-boy, who hath scarce been two months in my office, and to
rebel, and take himself off thus. Well, be it so. I am well rid of the
rebel, but an I have him not on the hip ere long, my name is not Grasp.
And now I forgot to demand of him the message sent to me from Clopton
Hall. My boots! my boots!" he called to the serving-wench, "and tell
Davey to clap saddle upon Sorrel. Troth I will ride to Clopton, and
inquire me of the steward what's amiss there."

When the serving-man brought the lawyer his boots, he announced a client
in waiting. "One to advise with your worship," said the man, "upon
matters of import, as he saith."

"Ah," said Grasp, "what manner of man, Davey man, and where
from,----what's his name too?"

"A would not give his name, but a said he were from Warwick," said
Davey.

"From Warwick, Davey? eh? Right, good Davey. I do expect one from
Warwick to-day,--I had forgotten as much--and so you showed him into the
front chamber?"

"I did, master," said Davey.

"And is all in order in that apartment, Davey?"

"It be so," said Davey.

"Papers, parchments, deeds, and strong boxes, all in their places,
Davey?" inquired Grasp.

"Yes, master, like nest-eggs. He! he! he!"

"And you told him I was engaged with another client on business of
import,--of immense import,--eh, Davey?"

"Trust I for that!" said Davey.

"Good, then, take him a cup of wine, Davey. Tell him I will see him the
moment I am disengaged, and then bring me hither my capon and tankard.
And d'ye hear,--after you have done that, mount Sorrel yourself, and
ride over to Clopton; make some excuse to introduce yourself into the
servants' hall, and just take a look, and observe if there be anything
out of the common there. You understand?"

"He! he! hap I do," said Davey, with a knowing wink, as he hurried out
to execute his several commissions.

When the important little lawyer condescended to give audience to the
particular client his serving-man David had announced, he found himself
in company with a tall aristocratic-looking person, dressed in the
somewhat faded appointments of a military man of the period: that is to
say, he wore the leathern doublet usually covered by the breast-plate
and back-piece, the stains upon it showing it had seen much service in
the field as well as the table, whilst the scarf and jingling spur still
farther denoted the profession of arms.

"Master Algernon Neville!" said the man of parchment, as soon as the
striking figure of the visitor saluted his eye on entering the room. "I
would your honour had sent in your name. I should hardly have kept you
so long in waiting here. Body o' me, I had no idea it was your
honourable self."

"Nor much desire so to find it, I dare be sworn, Grasp," said the
visitor. "But, sooth to say, I am come to thee again, and upon the same
errand as when I last was here."

"Advice, eh?" said Grasp; "truly your honour shall have it,--the best I
can give."

"I am bounden to thee, good Grasp," said the visitor, "for thy advice;
but there was, as thou knowest, something else I required of thee
besides thy advice, good as it doubtless was."

"Moneys?" said Grasp. "Truly I am not likely to forget I did also
advance certain moneys,--moneys you required to take you over to
Scotland."

"And now, if I require more moneys," said the visitor, "can you
accommodate me again?"

"Marry can I," said Grasp; "what sum does your honour require?"

The visitor hesitated. He looked shrewdly at Grasp, and taking the pen
from the inkstand marked on a piece of paper several figures.

"I want that," he said, handing the paper to Grasp.

"Mass, a round sum!" said Grasp; "but upon such security as you can give
you shall have it, honoured sir. Nay, double an you want it."

"Why, gad a-mercy!" said the visitor, in some surprise, "hast thou been
the Virginian voyage since I saw thee last? Rich thou hast always been
since I knew thee, but so ready to part with thy moneys I never knew
thee before."

"Your honour will pardon me for the simile," said Grasp; "but there are
a sort of men who are fortune's favourites, and who like cats ever light
upon their legs. Your honour hath surely heard a piece of news which
nearly concerns you?"

"I know of no news likely to effect my fortunes," said the visitor,
"having but lately arrived in England. Hast thou anything of import to
communicate?"

"Body o' me," said Grasp, "why, I concluded you _had heard_, or I had
communicated it immediately I saw you! Know you not the Earl of
Westmoreland is dead!"

"Nay, is this true?" said Neville, starting.

"True as that your honour is his next heir," said Grasp.

"And where died he?" inquired the visitor.

"In Italy, where he hath been long in exile, as thou know'st."

"Ah!" said Neville, "this is somewhat unlucky!"

"Unlucky?" said Grasp. "Heard ye ever the like o' that! What can be
unlucky that bodes your honour so much good? You are in fact and in
right, _de facto et de jure_, next heir to the earldom of Westmoreland."

"Would that I had known of this but yesterday!" said Neville,
abstractedly; "'twould have spared me from participating in this last
business."

"Did your honour observe anything?" said Grasp, staring at his visitor,
who seemed wrapped in the thought and cogitations consequent upon the
news he had just heard.

"'Tis no matter," he muttered at length to himself, "I will betray them
all. Harkee, good Grasp," he continued, after a considerable pause,
"'tis quite true, that which thou say'st. I am next heir to the title
and estate of Westmoreland. But it follows not, therefore, that I shall
succeed to them, as I am in disgrace and under suspicion. Could I indeed
do some acceptable service to the Queen, I might recover those estates
and honours forfeited by the rebellion of the earl just now deceased."

"That were, indeed, a way to recover," said Grasp; "but does your honour
know of any acceptable service that might do yourself honour and her
majesty pleasure?"

"I do," said Neville, "and you can aid me in it; but I warn you, it is
attended with danger."

"In aiding you I serve the Queen, it seems," said Grasp, "Is't not so?"

"It is so," said Neville.

"Ergo, it is profitable," said Grasp.

"It is so," said Neville.

"Then am I content to encounter the danger," said Grasp, "since I am
well aware that titles, honours, and profit are not to be gained without
some sort of risk; and now tell us, honoured sir, what is to be done."

"To discover a plot and arrest the traitors," said Neville.

"Ah," said Grasp, with alacrity, "that were indeed a circumstance. An
you could find such a matter as a ready-made plot, and light upon a nest
of traitors, I should say you were in luck's way, as usual, good Master
Neville."

"I can do both, good Grasp," said Neville, "and that not a thousand
miles from this town; nay, not a thousand yards from this house."

"Ah, say'st thou," said Grasp, "not a thousand yards from this house? As
sure as my name is Grasp, your words point at the strangers who have
been for the last two days playing at hide-and-seek at the Checquers. Am
I right, good sir?"

"You are," said Neville.

"Now, praise be to my sagacity," said Grasp, "I all along suspected
those mysterious men of being evil-doers. There is treason and concealed
villany in their very shadows as they glide about. What is the nature of
their designs and their intent, good Master Neville? are they emissaries
of the Spaniard? or are they----"

"Let it suffice, their intentions are dangerous to the safety of the
Queen, and they are secretly drawing into their conspiracy many Catholic
gentlemen in this county who are discontented with the present
government. Nay, five of them are sworn by the most binding oaths to
sacrifice themselves to the service of taking the life of the Queen."

"Oh, the villains!" said Grasp, rubbing his hands with delight at the
prospect of being accessory to the discovery of a conspiracy of so much
magnitude. "Oh, the caitiffs! a plot to destroy our blessed Queen, and
ruin the nation! now that's what I call worth living to hear of. I'm a
made man, that's clear."

"Nay, but," said Neville, "we must go warily to work, good Grasp; and I
must damp the exuberance of thy glee a trifle, inasmuch as this business
is likely to implicate and deprive thee perhaps of a client of thine."

"Ah," said Grasp, his countenance falling a little, "that's rather bad,
who is the man?"

"Sir Hugh Clopton."

"Thou hast taken my breath away," said Grasp, recoiling a pace or two.
"Sir Hugh Clopton, whom men call the good Sir Hugh, engaged in such a
bloodthirsty and jesuitical plot as this? Are you quite sure, honoured
sir, of the correctness of what you utter?"

"I am quite sure that some of those engaged and deeply pledged to
assassinate the Queen have been in hiding at Clopton Hall within the
last two days. Nay, I shall be able to identify several of the best
Catholic families in this county, as having been in correspondence with
emissaries in Scotland, not only to assassinate Elizabeth, but to set
the Queen of Scots at liberty, and place the crown upon her head."

"Nay, this is glorious," said Grasp; "the plot does indeed thicken, as
the saying is. The fiend take the good Sir Hugh; I would sacrifice fifty
such clients, and see them hanged, drawn, and quartered into the
bargain, for such a chance as this. And now let us lay our heads
together, and consult how to capture these bloody-minded conspirators
with most advantage to our own proper selves. How shall we proceed,
honoured sir? Shall we rouse the whole _posse comitatus_, and attack the
house in which these miscreants are engendering, and hatching, and
concocting those horrors; or, shall we go incontinent, and give secret
intelligence to Sir Thomas Lucy at Charlecote?"

"That I must leave to your discretion, good Grasp," said Neville. "Your
part must be to secure them ere twenty-four hours have elapsed.
Meantime, I must ride post haste to London, and give information to the
Queen or her ministers of the whole affair."

"I would your worship would remain here, and capture the caitiffs,
whilst I proceed up to town with information," said Grasp. "Methinks, as
you are a man of _war_, and I am a man of _law_, that would be the most
proper arrangement."

"By no means," said Neville. "Manage the matter as I have told thee. Do
it well and effectually, and reward is sure to follow to us both. It is
essential that I should myself gain favour by the discovery, and if I
should succeed to the estates and title of Westmoreland, I shall not
forget the service you have rendered. Be wary, and prosper. Farewell."
So saying, the visitor hastily took his leave, and a few minutes
afterwards was riding furiously towards Warwick, on his way to London.

"Now, there's a bloody-minded and dangerous Jesuit for you," said Grasp
to himself. "He thinks I know not that he's a Catholic, I suppose, and
that I cannot guess he has been as deep in this vile plot as the rest of
them. But I do bear a brain, and I can perceive that the death of his
relation hath completely turned his conscience, and now, in place of
helping to murder the Queen, he's going to hang up all his associates,
by turning evidence. A bad world, my masters, and bad folks in it! But
then it's by the bad I gain and thrive; bickerings, quarrellings,
evil-speaking, lying, and slander, plots, counterplots, conspiracies,
hangings, and headings, are my especial good. So now to consider and
contrive this matter. Let me see--I instantly hasten off to the high
bailiff, get together a sufficient body of his men, and then, my
masters, look to yourselves! A plot to kill the Queen, subvert the
Government, and burn the whole kingdom in an _auto-da-fe_! By all that's
good, the business will not be effected without blood-letting on both
sides! Let me see, who have we of approved valour and conduct to aid us
in this capture? There's Master John Shakespeare; he's a good man and a
true one, that will thrust in, and smite hard. His grandsire did good
service at Bosworth Field. Then there's Goodman Rivett, the armourer; he
hath an arm of might, and a heart of steel,--him will I also look up, an
we need special men. Then there's--Yet," continued Grasp, pausing, and
considering the matter, "methinks, after all, it would be better to put
the affair at once into the management of Sir Thomas Lucy. Yes, I will
incontinently and instantaneously proceed to Charlecote, and do so. Let
me see; 'tis now about one hour after noon. I shall catch the proud
knight just before he takes his post-prandium ride."

So saying, Grasp donned his hat, and prepared for his visit to
Charlecote.




CHAPTER XII.

THE SONNET.


When Shakespeare took leave of his newly-found friends at Clopton, he
left a deep impression behind him.

There was a feeling amongst the trio, which two of them at least could
not understand; so greatly had the youth's manners struck them, so
forcible was the interest he had created; whilst the third and most
interesting of the party found that the handsome lad had unconsciously
robbed her of her heart.

"By 'r Lady," said the old knight, "yonder stripling is one of the most
singular companions I ever met; without being in the least forward in
manners, he somehow impresses one with a feeling of inferiority I cannot
understand. He's an extraordinary youth, my masters; and, an he turn not
out something beyond the common, I am not a Clopton."

"How well he talks on all subjects!" said Arderne; "and yet how modest
doth he seem!"

"How beautiful were those verses he wrote this morning!" said Charlotte.

"If he did write them," said Martin, "lady mine; _for mark ye_, they may
be the offspring of another brain."

"_If_ he wrote them! Martin," said Charlotte: "why, who else could have
written them, think ye?"

"Why not another as well as he, lady mine?" said Martin, archly; "what
one man can do, another might effect. Methinks one older and more
learned must have indited those lines."

"Nay," said Charlotte, "I know not wherefore, but sure I feel that none
but he could have penned that sonnet."

"Gramercy," said Martin, "this is to have an opinion of merit, indeed!
Doth that stripling, that hero of the quarter-staff, seem to you, Master
Walter," he continued, shrewdly glancing at Arderne, "to have so much
merit that none other can come up to him?"

"I confess the lad hath made a singular impression upon me," said
Arderne, "an impression I cannot shake off or understand. I never was in
company with so amiable a youth before."

"Let us hear his verse again," said Sir Hugh. "Come, Martin, thou hast a
voice, thou shalt read it."

"Ahem," said Martin. "I am no hand at a stanza; I shall mar the good
verse, I fear me. Nevertheless, I will essay it."

                    THE SONNET.

    Who will believe my verse in time to come,
      If it were filled with your most high deserts?
    Though yet, Heaven knows, it is but as a tomb
      Which hides your life, and shews not half your parts.
    If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
      And in fresh numbers, number all your graces,
    The age to come would say, this poet lies,
      Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces,
    So should my papers, yellow'd with their age,
      Be scorn'd like old men of less truth than tongue;
    And your true rights be termed a poet's rage,
      And stretched metre of an antique song:
    But where some child of yours alive that time,
    You should live twice,--in it, and in my rhyme.

Sir Hugh was a man of parts. He was a man, too, of strong sense, and,
for the age in which he lived, might have been esteemed and accounted a
learned man withal.

Had he chosen to be more of a courtier, and his creed been different, he
might have risen to some eminence as a statesman.

He felt considerable astonishment, and expressed no less admiration, at
the beauty of the verses just recited.

"Now, by my fay, good Martin," said he, "I do somewhat lean to thy
opinion in the matter, inasmuch as it seemeth scarce possible so young a
lad could have penned such stanzas. Nay, by our Lady, I know not where
to look amongst our old poets in order to find aught to equal those
lines."

"Then where hath the lad gotten them from?" said Arderne. "Peradventure
he hath fetched them from some recent book of songs and sonnets; they
say young Spencer hath lately written."

"'Tis not in Spencer's vein," said Charlotte; "and since we have so far
discussed the matter, I must needs say that I can almost vouch for his
having written them."

"Ho! ho!" said Martin, with a shrewd look. "La! you there now. Come,
tell us the when, the where, and the how, Lady Charlotte. Let us have
the circumstances under which this sonnet was written, since yon confess
to so much knowledge of the matter."

"Nay, Martin," said Charlotte, blushing; "it was by accident I
discovered so much. Walter and myself had been walking under the shade
of the tall trees at the end of the garden, when I observed the youth
standing, with arms folded, and gazing upon us in the arbour at its
extremity. As we leisurely approached him, I saw him tear a leaf from a
small book he held in his hand, and write something in it. When we
entered the arbour and joined him, in putting up his book, he dropped
the stray leaf, upon which he had been writing, and I own I was wicked
enough to let it lie, and secure it after he had left us."

"Well," said Sir Hugh, "the lad is certainly a youth of merit, and I
feel bound to befriend him in what I can. We must bethink us, Walter, in
what way we can serve him materially."

"He is at present, as he tells me," said Arderne, "a clerk or writer in
the service of Lawyer Grasp; albeit he liketh not the drudgery and
confinement of such a life."

"I wonder not thereat," said Sir Hugh; "since to sentence a lad of so
much genius to be a scrivener's clerk, is like putting my best bred
palfrey into a mill, or shutting up a soaring falcon in a thrush's cage.
We must do something for him, Walter, for we owe much to him."

Such were the kind intentions of the good Sir Hugh towards one to whom
he felt under considerable obligations, and doubtless he who had caused
those grateful feelings would have felt the benefit of them from one so
well off in the world. "Wishing well, however, hath not a body in it;"
and our intents of to-day are oft-times marred by the events of
to-morrow.

The promises of the powerful are oft-times a sort of "satire upon the
softness of prosperity;" and in a few days the good Sir Hugh was himself
involved in difficulties which made him oblivious of all, save
honourable extrication from their labyrinth.

The conversation which had taken place regarding the sonnet, occurred on
the day following that on which young Shakespeare had left the Hall: a
day made more memorable to two of the inmates, from the circumstance of
the unwelcome visit of Gilbert Parry, and which it is our purpose now
again to refer to, in order to explain certain other matters
appertaining.

It will doubtless be remembered by our readers that the shrewd Martin
had played the spy upon the insane conspirator, and succeeded in making
himself complete master of his horrid and perilous intentions.
Intentions, the more dangerous to all who were in the slightest degree
implicated, as the bloody designs and desperate projects which were
suspected to be in existence against the Queen on all sides, had
determined Elizabeth's council to make terrible examples of all whom
they might discover. To the good Sir Hugh, however, the danger likely to
accrue to his own person was the least consideration; and when the
faithful Martin, accordingly, on the following morning, informed him of
the intentions of the visitor and his own suspicions of his sanity, the
good knight was struck with consternation. It was early morning when
Martin told his tale to his patron, and when the old knight having just
descended, was making the round of his kennel and falconry, and the
relation at once filled him with terror, pity, and indignation.

"I will incontinently visit this dangerous caitiff," he said, "and if I
find matters as bad as you say, I will take means to secure him and
prevent mischief. If he be indeed mad, it is my duty, as a Christian
man, to lay him under restraint; but if he be sane and resolved on such
attempt, I swear to thee I will arrest him with my own hand, and deliver
him over to justice."

"Beware!" said Martin, stopping him as he was hastening off in search of
his visitor. "Beware, good master mine, how you introduce yourself alone
into the den of a tiger. This fellow is dangerous in the extreme; and on
the slightest hint of your knowledge and disapproval of his designs,
will fly upon you and attempt your life. A madman I have heard say, in
his furious fits, hath twice the strength of one in possession of
reason."

"I value not his madness a maravedi," said Sir Hugh, whose anger was
predominant at the moment. "A murderous caitiff and condemned felon thus
to introduce himself into my house! By our Lady's grace, an he draw
weapon or lift hand against me, I will smite him in the teeth with my
dagger, and kill him like the reptile at my foot."

"At least, let me accompany you," said Martin, who saw that the angry
spirit so seldom aroused was now predominant, and therefore the more
resistless.

"Follow an ye list," said Sir Hugh, "but I tell thee I am quite able to
cope with such a fellow, and equal to arrest him if I find his purpose
treasonable;" so saying, and followed by the faithful Martin, Sir Hugh
re-entered the house, and the pair, introducing themselves into the
secret wing of the mansion, immediately ascended into the chamber in
which Parry had been shewn the night before.

Sir Hugh was the first to enter, and, with the angry spot upon his brow,
after hastily glancing round the small room advanced to the bed and
pulled open the curtain with no very gentle hand.

The bed, however, was unoccupied, and the room tenantless, although the
crumpled state of the coverlid of the couch and pillows shewed that the
occupant had thrown himself upon it during some part of the night at
least.

"There is the form," said Sir Hugh, "but the game is off."

"There is no saying where such a customer may have crept to," said
Martin, peeping under the bed, then getting up on one of the chairs and
looking out of the small window upon the roof. "The man I am sure is as
mad as a March hare; let us descend and see if he is any where secreted
in the small apartment below."

Sir Hugh accordingly descended, and (both together) searched in every
closet and hiding hole with which the place was accommodated, but the
bird had certainly flown, having, without doubt, passed into the garden
by the small postern door which opened on the inside.

Proceeding into the garden they searched through its walks and alleys,
but the object of their search was no where to be found, and the small
door which opened in the thick high wall at its extremity, and admitted
into the thick plantations beyond, being wide open, they naturally
concluded their visitor had fairly decamped in his insane mood as
unceremoniously as he had entered. Sir Hugh, however (although he could
not but feel relieved at the absence of the dangerous intruder), felt
considerable annoyance at the whole circumstance. He was oppressed with
the knowledge of the maniac's treason, and which, notwithstanding the
powerful letter brought to him from the Nuncio Campeggio, he was
resolved to divulge to the Queen's council. At the same time he also
determined to do nothing rashly. Father Eustace was expected in a few
hours, and must be consulted, whilst Martin, meanwhile, undertook to
endeavour to trace the madman and observe his motions if possible.

In such a case delays are dangerous, as the good Sir Hugh found, for
Parry, whose vagaries had alarmed some of those connected with the
dangerous plot, having been met with in Stratford, and then followed to
Clopton, was lured into a secret appointment and put to silence with at
least half a dozen wounds; and the whole affair in a few short hours
after was in progress of being fully divulged. Of this, however, Sir
Hugh was not likely to become acquainted, till the news reached him in
an unpleasant shape. The circumstance of a man having been killed just
without the town was by no means an uncommon event; and as Martin had
failed in tracing Parry, and Father Eustace's return was delayed, except
that there was a degree of mystery attached to the appearance and
disappearance of the visitor, in a few days the circumstance was almost
forgotten.

Meantime, whilst, with swift passage, events were hastening onwards, and
which were to involve some of the _dramatis personae_ of our story in
the perils and miseries of life, how calmly and how treacherously flowed
on the even tenor of their hours. Mischief, as we have seen, was afoot;
a secret society, consisting of one or two dangerous fanatics, resident
in the county of Warwick, an Irish gentleman of rank, and several other
desperadoes, had met, as we have before hinted, at one of the low
hostels in the town of Stratford, and which locality they had chosen for
some reason best known to themselves.

These men, involved in a desperate enterprise, and sworn to devote
themselves to death one by one, till they had achieved it, whilst they
sought to increase the number of their associates, found danger even in
the overzeal--the frenzied enthusiasm--of one of their own instruments,
whilst another was about to prove false and betray them; nay, at the
very moment when, like the alchemist of old, their toils were to be
rewarded with progression, the vessel containing the elixir was to
burst, and destroy all within its influence.

These emissaries were at work in various directions,--secretly,
stealthily. They had friends in France, in Spain, in Italy, in Flanders
even; the day and the hour at which the first attempt was to be made was
fixed; the very hooftreads of the horse which carried the unscrupulous
Neville towards his design, in imagination, were counted by them; whilst
he who was then, as his associates supposed, hastening towards this
purpose, from a sudden change having taken place in his before desperate
fortunes, was indeed posting to London; not, as he had sworn, in order
to make essay upon the life of Elizabeth, but to betray the whole plot
to the council, to aggrandize himself, and give to the gibbet and the
executioner's knife, his sometime friends.

And such are the inscrutable ways by which Providence works out His
ends: such is the wisdom of the Great Director of events, and such are
the vain designs of man. Ever driving headlong onwards, hastened by evil
passions, obstinacy, wickedness, and pride, to inevitable
destruction;--destroyed by their own villanous devices, thirsting for
blood, grasping at riches, feeding absolutely on each other, the wicked
perish miserably.




CHAPTER XIII.

MOTHER AND SON.


Those of our readers who have visited Stratford-upon-Avon, and looked
upon the house in Henley Street, that house which has caused so great an
interest in the world, will remember the lattice-windowed room in its
upper floor, that room in which (as their eyes have glanced around its
walls) their feelings have perhaps been excited almost unto the shedding
of tears;--that room in which some portion of the early youth of him
whose idea is enshrined in the hearts of all who speak our English
tongue, was passed.

It is mid-day, and seated in that room are a mother and an elder son.
The mother is employed in some sort of curious work, whilst her baby is
cradled, and asleep at her side. Spinning perhaps, like "the spinsters
and the knitters of the sun,"--

    "Weaving her threads with bones,"

lace-making; and as she works, she chants some old ditty,--some song,
"that dallies with the innocence of love, like the old age."

    "Come away, come away, death,
      And in sad cypress let me be laid;
    Fly away, fly away, breath,
      I am slain by a fair cruel maid:
    My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
              O, prepare it--
    My part of death no one so true
              Did share it.

    Not a flower, not a flower, sweet,
      On my black coffin let there be strewn;
    Not a friend, not a friend, greet
      My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown;
    A thousand, thousand sighs to save,
              Lay me, O where
    Sad true lover ne'er find my grave,
              To weep there."[1]

[Footnote 1: "Twelfth Night."]

And whilst she sings, the youth, her son, seated upon a stool at her
feet, is deeply engaged in perusing the goodly-sized volume he holds
upon his knees.

Such is the picture. The sun streams through the diamond panes of that
ample window, and gives a glowing tint to the red curtains of the old
square-topped bedstead, and other cumbrous articles of furniture; the
high-backed chairs, and the heavy oaken table in the background. What
would the illustrious of the world,--what would the most honoured in the
world's esteem, of our own day, for arts, for arms, or for
learning,--what would they give for _one_ glance into "the dark backward
and abysm of time,"--but _one_ glance, so to see that mother and her
son;--that mother who implanted grace in her child; that child whose
high spirit had been tamed and cultivated by her influence? And what,
indeed, should we all be, saith a great writer, but for the influence of
women in our youth?

They give us life, and they also give us the life of the soul. How many
things do we learn of them as sons, lovers, or friends?

The youthful Shakespeare loved to hold sweet converse with his handsome
mother, and whom he loved so well. From her conversation, in his boyhood
he had taken his first impressions of things: from her legendary
stories, (so sweetly related,) he had gathered many facts of history. In
winter's tedious nights, how oft had she pictured to him all she had
heard from her own parents, of the York and Lancastrian wars, and the
horrors to which England had been reduced--"Discord in every state,
discord in every family!" From her's, and from his father's relations,
over the winter's fire, were gathered the boy's first impressions of
those fierce English, whose characteristics (according to their foes)
were force of pride, and obstinacy--those doggedly resolute, those
invincibly cool islanders, who, in all their splendour of their feudal
pride, had so often walked through the vasty fields of France, as if in
some harnessed masque, eating up the lands on all sides, and still
fighting onwards in their own joyless way: burning, slaying, and
destroying for so many centuries, till they made captive at Agincourt,
not only of the French king, but the very realm.

'Twas thus the boy had learnt his first lesson in the history of his
country, not either exactly as a lesson, but in the homely popular form
of a winter night's tale, as the simple story, or faith of a mother.

And what we thus inbibe with the milk we suck, and with our growing
blood, is a living thing as it were, and what the boy loved to listen to
as a simple story, the youth loved to follow out as a study. He reads of
the events his mother has told him of, and given him a taste for, in the
chronicled history of the wars of the time; whilst the little of life
and splendour he has already seen, in the brilliant era in which he
lives, has given him, even now, an impression of the pride, pomp, and
circumstance of the Norman period.

Yes, the mind of the boy had been moulded by his mother, and a great
deal of his just appreciation of women, and his delineations of the
exquisite females he has drawn, are derived from the impressions she has
given him.

As he reads from the thick volume, in which he learnt more accurately
the facts, and date, of the history of his own country, he occasionally
pauses to listen to his mother's song, to gaze up in her face, and to
question her upon some point he has arrived at, and which he remembers
to have heard her relate before.

Music and singing were much more cultivated (even amongst the humble
classes) than in our own times, in England, and where indeed they are
now scarcely cultivated at all. The sweet old songs "of the old age,"
are for the most part lost to us, they have departed with the quainter
dwellings in which they were warbled.

In those days the strains which floated through the halls of the great,
and the notes which were heard in the low-roofed apartments of the
citizen, were calculated to soothe and quiet the passions of man. In our
own times they are meant to arouse and excite--they are a whirl, a
discordant noise. The lullabys which the mother chanted as she worked,
were scraps of songs, great favourites at the time, and afterwards
adapted from the recollection of the hearer in some of his works:

    "Take, oh, take those lips away,
     That so sweetly were forsworn,--
    And those eyes, the break of day,
     Lights that do mislead the morn.
    But my kisses bring again,--bring again,
    Seals of love, but seal'd in vain,--seal'd in vain."[2]

[Footnote 2: This song, which, no doubt, was a favourite in its day, is
inserted in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Bloody Brother."]

Not only the history of his own land, and which all ranks at this period
were lamentably ignorant in, did the youthful Shakespeare receive the
rudiments of from his mother; but she loved to amuse him with those
stories of romance she had learned from her own parents, and which had
been handed down from the chivalric ages, when the female of high degree
was the teacher of youth. The great lady--"of exalted rank and
inaccessible,"--who cultivates the mind of the youthful page--a mother,
a sister, a guardian angel, and yet of such high degree, that she seems
(in the austerity of her counsels, and the difficulties to be overcome,
ere her favour can be gained) too great even to receive the adoration of
him whose service costs so many sighs. Till in the end, as the
accomplished knight is produced, the incarnation of merit and grace all
fades away before the powerful god.

The youth achieves greatness, and becomes lord of that beautiful lady,
her dark castle, and her broad domain, "with shadowy forests, and with
champions rich."




CHAPTER XIV.

THE LOVERS.


But three days had intervened since young Shakespeare's introduction to
Clopton Hall, and again he was a visitor there.

Although his own desire for the society of its amiable inmates might
reasonably have led the youth to repeat his visit, his better judgment
would have hindered him from so soon returning to Clopton, had he not
been led to do so by Walter Arderne.

That young man felt so great a desire to renew his acquaintance with the
youthful poet, that he had sought him out on the day following his
visit; and had, indeed, been with him every succeeding day in the
interval.

To one so amiable in disposition and so generous in sentiment as Walter
Arderne, the difference in station between himself and friend was no bar
to intimacy. Indeed, he felt so much in every way his own inferiority,
whilst in company with this singular new acquaintance, that it seemed
when in his society as if the condescension was on the other side. At
the same time the joyous spirit of the youthful Shakespeare, and a spice
of reckless daring in his disposition, gave an additional charm to his
companionship. So that intimacy, which (amongst many) has been the
source of the deadliest enmity, in this case led to the firmest
friendship.

"I know not wherefore, good William," said Arderne, as they slowly
wended their way towards Clopton, "but towards thee my feelings of
friendship and attachment are greater than is ordinarily experienced
between men not connected by blood. I am by birth thy superior, my
prospects in life are more brilliant than thine, I mix with the choice
spirits of the country here, and yet (albeit I am looked on as a wit, a
setter of exploits, a leader of diversions, a good blade, and a
sportsman), yet, somehow, my genius seems rebuked when in thy presence;
I feel myself as it were naught. Nay, despite thy sober suit of homely
cut and fashion, there is a superiority in every look, tone, and
movement of thine, which I feel and wonder at."

"Nay," said Shakespeare, "this is something too much, good sir. 'Tis
your love and friendship which makes you think thus. Be assured, the gay
and gallant Walter Arderne can never be outshone by so quiet, so
unobtrusive a wight as myself."

"Ah, so thou say'st," returned Arderne; "but why is it that I feel this
veneration on so short an acquaintance with a mere boy? Thy converse is
different from that of men even of learning and great attainments. There
is a force, a feeling in every word thou utterest, which makes its
impression. Yes, there is a manner about thee, William Shakespeare,
which is inexplicable; whilst thy slightest remark upon the most trivial
flowret in the hedgerow seems to me worth all the uttered wisdom of the
schools."

"Nay, then," said Shakespeare, laughing, "thou art but flouting me, good
Master Walter."

"Truly, thou art an extraordinary youth, good William, and the way thou
hast drawn out the different characters we have met with as we walked
the streets even to-day, and made them display their peculiarities and
their follies, is as singular as all else pertaining to thee."

Whilst they held converse thus, Walter Arderne and his new friend drew
near to the garden and pleasure-grounds of the Hall. As they did so, the
eyes of the lover detected his mistress in the distance. She was slowly
pacing along one of the walks, and perusing some verses written upon a
small scrap of paper. Arderne stopped as soon as he saw Charlotte
Clopton, and as he watched her graceful form amidst the trees, he seemed
for the moment wrapped in his own thoughts.

"Were it not," he said, after a pause, and turning to his youthful
friend, "were it not that I so entirely love thee, good William, were it
not that even in our short acquaintance I so highly esteem thee, I
should hesitate to bring one so superior to myself in contact with her I
adore; and were it not that thy superiority is so great, I should scorn
to own such a feeling to thee, William Shakespeare, lest I compromised
my own station by such thoughts. 'Tis strange, but so it is; and to any
one but thee, I should have shamed to give my thoughts tongue on such a
subject."

Ardorne sighed as he said this, and again looked towards the object of
his ardent affection. "She loves me not," he said, "'tis vain for me to
suppose she does. Her manner, despite her willingness to oblige her
father, and even to persuade herself she feels inclination to wed with
me, too plainly shews I have little or no real interest in her heart.
Had I but thy winning tongue and gift of speech, good William, I might
do much. Nay, it were good that thou shouldst plead for me, and tell her
of the violence of my passion; and thou shalt do it too."

"Nay," said his friend, "that would be somewhat out of the usual course
of wooing. I pray you hold me excused in this Master Arderne."

"Not a whit," said Arderne, "the thought is a good one. Women oft-times
are led to prize that which those they think well of value,--to open
their eyes and see clearly the hugeness of an affection they have not
before appreciated."

"But I know not how to woo a maid for myself," said his friend, "since I
have never yet made suit to one, how, then, am I to play the suitor for
so accomplished a cavalier; I who hath not ever seen the court?"

"Tush, tush, man," said Arderne, "there's ne'er a courtier of them all
could match thee, I dare be sworn."

And thus did the boy poet--the lover under circumstances so peculiar,
spend another day at Clopton Hall, and where all he saw gave him a
second impression of life in a different sphere to that in which he had
hitherto moved. True to the whimsical project which had suddenly seized
him, Walter Arderne left his friend with a fair opportunity of pleading
for him to the fair Charlotte.

"When thou art tired of examining those worm-eaten volumes," he said to
Shakespeare, "I dare be sworn thou wilt find Mistress Charlotte in her
favourite arbour in the garden. Sir Hugh and myself are promised forth
this morning. Farewell, therefore, for the present."

Our readers will readily imagine that the renewal of acquaintance
between this youthful pair would be likely to ripen the growing
affection they felt for each other. Concealment, however, seemed to both
a matter of necessity. Neither dared to own, even to themselves, that
they loved. Pride came to the aid of each. In one it was the pride which
fears even the shadow of suspicion; in the other it was the pride of
birth. The pride of ancestry, however, is soonest subdued in such cases;
that of conscience is more difficult for the blind god to overcome.

And the youthful poet and the exquisite Charlotte found themselves
thrown together, where every scene of beauty around them was conducive
to the growth of their passion.

The locality has oft-times much to do with love.

The lady, in all her glowing beauty, seemed even more lovely amidst her
own shadowy groves, with the time-honoured towers of her ancestors
looking majestic in the distance. The perfume from the sweetly-scented
shrubs and flowrets, the whisper of the soft breeze through the
luxuriant trees, the cooing of the wood-pigeons in the distant
plantation, the hum of the bees, and the plash of the fountain, each and
all were felt by one who was so prone to feel.

And he himself who walked beside that beautiful girl, thus surrounded by
all the appliances of rank and station, how did he appear in her eyes in
his lowly suit? Had he nothing to recommend him, and did he seem
unfitted for the companionship of one so much more elevated in station?
Did he appear to feel himself out of place or abashed by all he saw? We
think not. The lady looked upon that face of youthful beauty; the soft
curly hair even then thin upon the high forehead, the features so
beautifully formed and so expressive; that eye so soft, and yet at times
so full of fire, and whose glance was like the lightning's flash; the
small beautifully-formed and downy moustache upon the upper lip; and all
this, added to a figure which for grace and symmetry might have vied
with a Grecian statue. And as she looked and listened to his sweet and
honied sentences, she felt that all around would darken down to naked
waste without his society. The conversation of him who but a few days
before she would have passed without perhaps deigning to look upon,
seemed to have opened a new world to her. Such is love,--that most
fantastic of passions, which is said to be but once felt, and once felt
never forgotten.

The affections of women are perhaps easier won than those of men. They
are commonly more disinterested, and "prize not quality of dirty lands."
Seldom do we find that women display such open heartlessness, such acts
of infidelity, as men.

    "For however we do praise ourselves,
    Our fancies are more giddy and infirm,
    More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won,
          Than woman's are."

That the fair Charlotte should, on better knowledge, more fully
appreciate the merits of her companion, we of latter days, who imagine
the man from his works alone, can hardly wonder at; and the
peculiarities of the position of the lovers made her, falling
desperately in love, the less extraordinary. Had the youth of inferior
degree presumed upon the favourable impression he could not help seeing
he had made, the pride of the lady might have better befriended her. But
there was ever a certain reserve about him, when matters seemed verging
towards their issue, which perplexed and somewhat piqued her.

The expression of his eyes, when occasionally she detected him gazing
upon her, was hardly to be mistaken, but then his respectful reserve
would as suddenly return.

This was, however, a state of things which could not last, and perhaps,
of all men, the ardent, the impassioned Shakespeare, in his early youth,
was the most unlikely person to withstand such a strife as he was
exposed to, and come off victorious, however honour, and friendship,
and pride, might come to his aid. The knowledge that he was beloved by
the fair creature beside him, the locality, the opportunity afforded him
of expressing his own feelings, altogether, even in this his second
visit, nearly made shipwreck of all his good intentions, and once or
twice he was about to seize the hand of the fair Charlotte, and after
owning the ardour of his affection, fly from the spot for ever.

He, however, during this visit did manage to contain and conceal his
passion; nay, he even performed the office of friendship which had been
entrusted to him, and as he spoke of the fair lady's betrothed husband,
he praised him for those good qualities he had already found him to
possess, and spoke of him as one worthy the love and regard of any
woman, however excellent and high in station. This was a theme, however,
which he perceived was somewhat unwelcome, and the beauty grew wayward
as he pursued it. With girlish tact she beat him from his theme, as
often as he renewed it, and sought to lure him to other subjects more
congenial to her thoughts whilst in his society. Nay, perhaps had he
studied how best to advance his own suit to her he could not have hit
upon a way more likely to succeed.

The fair Charlotte was piqued at what she considered his insensibility,
and without considering what she did, she almost let him understand that
it would have been much more grateful to her to have heard the speaker's
own merits extolled than those of Master Arderne.

"And yet," she said, with a sigh, as she glanced archly from her fringed
lids, whilst her eyes were cast down in mock solemnity, "and yet I
should be ungrateful were I not to join in your praises towards my bold
coz, for in good sooth I am indebted to him for many of the
accomplishments I possess. He hath taught me to fly my hawk with e'er a
cavalier in Warwickshire. Nay, I think I could even shoe my palfrey as
well as ride him, if necessary. I am sure I could train a hound as well
as himself, and, as for the treatment of the poor brutes in all their
ailments, that I am confident I understand quite as much as old Hubert,
the head huntsman, or any of his underlings. Now, all these matters I
have been fairly taught and perfected in by my cousin, therefore see an
I be not under obligation indeed."

"And is such, the praise that one so true of heart and hand deserves?"
said Shakespeare. "Methinks, in this world, where so much silliness,
selfishness, vanity, and falsehood exists, a perfect cavalier, without
fault and honest, open and free too as he is brave and handsome,
deserves more praise from the lips of beauty than for paltry knowledge
you have ascribed to him."

"Paltry knowledge!" said Charlotte, laughing, "what call ye paltry? Why,
these accomplishments I have enumerated to thee are the essentials of a
country gentleman, as necessary for the woods and fields as dancing,
dicing, and swearing are for the town. But methinks 'tis somewhat early
for you to have taken note of the silliness and falsehood existing in
the world; one so young can scarce have observed such matters, I should
have thought."

"Pardon me, good lady," said Shakespeare, "what may be in the world at
large I am, indeed, for the most part ignorant in. But our good town of
Stratford hath in its

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