“Admit, Captain,” said the scholar, “that Opportunity signifieth by
the lexicon a meet or convenient time; and what is time but an
abstraction? Wherefore whoso seizeth opportunity seizeth an
abstraction, the which has never been held, nor ever will or can be
held, to constitute a violation of that social contract which is
called the law.”
Two men were seated in a bower of the “Ship Aground” at Greenwich. The
bright little garden at their feet ran down to a low parapet
overlooking the river, whose waters, gay with shipping, sparkled
merrily in the June sunshine. Behind them the tinkle and gossip of the
inn sounded pleasantly; to their left a small plantation of trees led
direct to the boundaries of the royal palace--“Placentia,” or the
“Manor of Pleazaunce,” it was called--whose red roofs and bowed
Italian windows were plainly visible through the green. A flight of
wooden steps in the embankment to their right constituted the public
landing-place; and for the rest and everywhere were climbing wood and
lawn, tumbled with houses like warm red boulders, and gathered at
their summit into that Lancastrian tower which was destined in future
ages to blossom into the universal meridian.
The men sat on either side a rustic table, a stoup of warm ale with a
toast in it between them. The soldier, strong and thickset, was
Captain Nicholas Blount, of the Earl of Sussex’s guard. The other, a
dissipated, whimsical-looking young man, dressed in black, with a
plain falling band, and on his head the scholar’s biretta with
embracing flaps, was Master John Sparrow, ex-graduate of Trinity and
clerk to the same nobleman. The former sprawled with his doublet
unbuttoned, and his rapier and bonnet laid aside. He was an honest,
downright soul, more of a Davus than an Œdipus, and yet with a naïve
humorous side to him that ingratiated. In common with some soldiers of
his rare time he had a tremendous respect for learning.
“Jack Sparrow,” quoth he, “thou hast a damnable overplus of
sophistication to answer a plain man withal. But I’ll have thee there.
Is not theft an abstraction, and yet punishable by the law?”
“Well countered, Captain,” said the clerk; “but I will prove it
otherwise.”
“How, sharp wit?”
“Why, look you; by the token that a theft is an abstraction, an
abstraction is a theft. But I say an abstraction is no theft, sith it
steals nothing but time, which is itself an abstraction. Is a thief a
thief, therefore, who steals from himself?”
“Thou playest on the word, that hath another meaning.”
“God save your neck if you’ll insist on ’t. One day you’ll be caught
in a reverie and hanged for an abstraction. For me, one word one
meaning is enough.”
“What hanged--Nick hanged!” cried a voice, that of one of two
gentlemen who at the moment came round the leafy angle of the bower.
“What is his offence?”
Blount and the young man rose to their feet, the one with a jocund,
the second with a respectful manner of salutation.
“Fair welcome, masters,” said the soldier. “Your wit shall save me a
halter, or I’ll be hanged for it.”
The two new-comers were Mr. Greville and his _alter ego_ Mr. Philip
Sidney, the latter already the _preux chevalier_ of his age. Though
now in no more than his twenty-seventh year, his world-knowledge and
accomplishments exceeded those of most contemporary gallants. Tall,
spare, with a rather long melancholy face full of sweetness and
intelligence, his whole aspect conveyed an assurance of reasonableness
and liberality. His hair, warm yellow and somewhat sleek, was parted
at one side into the long love-lock in vogue; his doublet and
trunk-hose were of a sober grey but laced with a rich frilling of
gold. So was his own quiet nature veined with light. A poet and
scholar, a traveller and man of action, a courtier in the worthiest
sense, some paltry squabble thrust upon him had banished him latterly
from the side of the sovereign to whom his qualities were most
endeared, and he was only present in Greenwich on a private affair
during the absence of the Court. His friend and coetanian, the Lord
Brooke to be--he who came to desire of posterity no greater
recognition than that he had been Shakespeare’s friend--was a young
man of like learning, sincerity, and skill in arms.
“Why, Nick,” quoth Sidney, “the alternative is certain. But whereby
hangs the halter?”
“Round my neck,” answered Blount. “He seeks to throttle me, this
learned clerk here, with his sophistications.”
The three gentlemen sat down, the student remaining standing.
“How throttle?” said Sidney.
Jack Sparrow took the answer out of the soldier’s mouth:
“We were discussing your friend, Master Raleigh, sirs, whom the
Captain here will dub the very thief of opportunity.”
“And hold to it,” said Blount.
“Nay,” said the ex-graduate, “when, as I maintain and repeat,
Opportunity is the common property, whereby to take it is no more
offence in a man than the picking of blackberries on the highway.”
“Or the picking of pockets,” said Mr. Greville.
“Hold, Fulke,” said Sidney: “I do perceive a flaw there, in that the
seizure or prehension is by its very terms held personal to the
appropriator. Thus I may take _my_ opportunity, but not another
man’s.”
“Well decreed, Phil,” cried the soldier, with a shout of triumph, and
smacked a hand to his knee. “How now, Master Quiddity? Wilt answer to
that?”
“With submission, Mr. Sidney,” replied the student, “is not all
opportunity yours when you see it? _Oblatam occasionem tene_: the
warrant of Cicero is in the phrase.”
“The very offering, my friend, implies a priority of ownership by
another; wherefore, if I seize another man’s opportunity uninvited, I
am guilty of a moral felony.”
“But supposing he, that other, omits or refuses to make use of his
own?” persisted the student, with his tongue in his cheek.
Nicholas Blount roared: “Omits, quotha! But what is mine is mine,
rogue, though there be a thousand popinjays could convert the thing to
their own more profitable usage. Wherefore I say, who takes my
opportunity steals; wherefore I say, this Raleigh is a thief of
opportunity.”
“Instance, instance!” cried the two young gentlemen, crowing; and
Greville bawled for the drawer to bring wine.
The soldier grunted: “I’m no man for equivoque; I hold by what I say.
You shall hear and judge between us. This Walter, sirs----”
“A very proper courtier of his inches,” said Greville.
“Your friend, sir,” answered Blount sarcastically; “and mine--God quit
us of all such allies. He was my friend once, and took the privileges.
There was little he would not take, including the wall, of any man. To
do him justice, a sweet fighting Hector, full of courage as of grace.
He was just home from Ireland when we met last year--fresh from
carving of the Kerns. Yet a hand like milk. Nothing would ever stick
to it but gold. I cry you mercy, gentles. He was my friend, I say.”
Greville broke into laughter, and Sidney smiled, his lips twitching.
“_Castigo te non quod_--eh, master clerk?” said the latter. “Perchance
he chastised the Captain for very love.”
“You shall hear,” said Blount grimly. “A proper courtier, quoth Master
Greville--a very proper courtier. I doubt it not. How looked he when
you saw him last?”
“It was at Whitehall,” said Greville. “You know the man--the mirror of
fashion, the prince of wit, the pink of assurance. One noon he met the
Queen just stepping from her closet. ‘What time is it, good sir?’
quoth she. ‘What time your Highness pleases,’ he answered. ‘Then,’
says her Majesty, ‘I will have it the hour when men speak truth.’
‘Alas, madam!’ says Raleigh, ‘do you seek a pretext for destroying
me?’ ‘What pretext, sir?’ she asks. ‘Why,’ says he, ‘the enforced
confession of my hopeless passion for a Queen.’”
The soldier snorted alarmingly. “I warrant he’d rehearsed it, preening
and curling before his glass,” he said.
“Alack!” said Sidney; “his hair curls naturally--the worse for sleeker
heads.”
“How went he?” said Blount--“a painted popinjay?”
“Always in silk and velvet,” answered Greville demurely--“white for
choice, and his doublet jewelled in the seams. He becomes his dress,
in sooth; knows how to shadow with ambrosial fleece the high pale
culture of his forehead; wears his sword as if he used it; hangs his
cloak----”
The soldier roared out:
“Hold! His cloak? God’s grace! It hangs--hang him, I say! So I picture
him--all but the cloak. It was here we sat together, in this green
arbour, but a year ago. Just home from bloody Ireland was he, yet as
white and cool as swan’s-down. We were here, I say, we two, in this
very spot, and the Court at Pleazaunce. The Queen was in her barge on
the river. We saw her pass, and the rogue’s eyes dreamed. Some
caprice--some premonition belike--engaged her Majesty to land at the
common steps yonder. They were wet and foul, the morning having
rained, and, perceiving his chance, my comrade snatched up cloak, and
leaped and joined the throng that hovered on the royal advent. I came
more leisurely behind, and saw the pretty Queen mount up and hesitate,
pursing her lips in comical dismay before a pool of mud. And then, all
in a moment--but you’ve heard the story?”
“He spread his cloak for her to step on?”
“Damn him!”
“Why so?”
“It was _my_ cloak, that was all--new green velvet, and home that
morning from the cutter’s. Own him now a thief of opportunity.”
Mr. Sidney and Mr. Greville looked at one another gravely a moment,
then burst into a shout of laughter.