THE LAST STRAW
Little John Summer had a new horn-book that cost a silver penny. The
handle was carven and the horn was clear as honey. The other little boys
stood round about in speechless envy, or murmured their A B C’s and “ba
be bi’s” along the chapel steps. The lower-form boys were playing
leap-frog past the almshouse, and Geoffrey Gosse and the vicar’s son
were in the public gravel-pit, throwing stones at the robins in the
Great House elms across the lane.
Some few dull fellows sat upon the steps behind the school-house,
anxiously poring over their books. But the larger boys of the Fable
Class stood in an excited group beneath the shadow of the overhanging
second story of the grammar-school, talking all at once, each louder
than the other, until the noise was deafening.
“Oh, Nick, such goings on!” called Robin Getley, whose father was a
burgess, as Nick Attwood came slowly up the street, saying his sentences
for the day over and over to himself in hopeless desperation, having had
no time to learn them at home. “Stratford Council has had a quarrel,
and there’s to be no stage-play after all.”
“What?” cried Nick, in amazement. “No stage-play? And why not?”
“Why,” said Robin, “it was just this way—my father told me of it. Sir
Thomas Lucy, High Sheriff of Worcester, y’ know, rode in from Charlcote
yesternoon, and with him Sir Edward Greville of Milcote. So the
burgesses made a feast for them at the Swan Inn. Sir Thomas fetched a
fine, fat buck, and the town stood good for ninepence wine and twopence
bread, and broached a keg of sturgeon. And when they were all met
together there, eating, and drinking, and making merry—what? Why, in
came my Lord Admiral’s players from London town, ruffling it like high
dukes, and not caring two pops for Sir Thomas, or Sir Edward, or for
Stratford burgesses all in a heap; but sat them down at the table
straightway, and called for ale, as if they owned the place; and not
being served as soon as they desired, they laid hands upon Sir Thomas’s
server as he came in from the buttery with his tray full, and took both
meat and drink.”
“What?” cried Nick.
“As sure as shooting, they did!” said Robin; “and when Sir Thomas’s
gentry yeomen would have seen to it—what? Why, my Lord Admiral’s
master-player clapped his hand to his poniard-hilt, and dared them come
and take it if they could.”
“To Sir Thomas Lucy’s men?” exclaimed Nick, aghast.
“Ay, to their teeth! Sir Edward sprang up then, and said it was a shame
for players to behave so outrageously in Will Shakspere’s own home town.
And at that Sir Thomas, who, y’ know, has always misliked Will, flared
up like a bull at a red rag, and swore that all stage-players be
runagate rogues, anyway, and Will Shakspere neither more nor less than a
deer-stealing scape-gallows.”
“Surely he did na say that in Stratford Council?” protested Nick.
“Ay, but he did—that very thing,” said Robin; “and when that was out,
the master-player sprang upon the table, overturning half the ale, and
cried out that Will Shakspere was his very own true friend, and the
sweetest fellow in all England, and that whosoever gainsaid it was a
hemp-cracking rascal, and that he would prove it upon his back with a
quarter-staff whenever and wherever he chose, be he Sir Thomas Lucy, St.
George and the Dragon, Guy of Warwick, and the great dun cow, all rolled
up in one!”
“Robin Getley, is this the very truth, or art thou cozening me?”
“Upon my word, it is the truth,” said Robin. “And that’s not all. Sir
Edward cried out ‘Fie!’ upon the player for a saucy varlet; but the
fellow only laughed, and bowed quite low, and said that he took no
offense from Sir Edward for saying that, since it could not honestly be
denied, but that Sir Thomas did not know the truth from a truckle-bed in
broad daylight, and was but the remnant of a gentleman to boot.”
“The bold-faced rogue!”
“Ay, that he is,” nodded Robin; “and for his boldness Sir Thomas
straightway demanded that the High Bailiff refuse the company license to
play in Stratford.”
“Refuse the Lord High Admiral’s players?”
“Marry, no one else. And then Master John Shakspere, wroth at what Sir
Thomas had said of his son Will, vowed that he would send a letter down
to London town, and lay the whole coil before the Lord High Admiral
himself. For ever since that he was High Bailiff, the best companies of
England had always been bidden to play in Stratford, and it would be an
ill thing now to refuse the Lord Admiral’s company after granting
licenses to both my Lord Pembroke’s and the High Chamberlain’s.”
“And so it would,” spoke up Walter Roche; “for there are our own
townsmen, Richard and Cuthbert Burbage, who are cousins of mine, and
John Hemynge and Thomas Greene, besides Will Shakspere and his brother
Edmund, all playing in the Lord Chamberlain’s company in London before
the Queen. It would be a black score against them all with the Lord
Admiral—I doubt not he would pay them out.”
“That he would,” said Robin, “and so said my father and Alderman Henry
Walker, who, y’ know, is Will Shakspere’s own friend. And some of the
burgesses who cared not a rap for that were afeard of offending the Lord
Admiral. But Sir Thomas vowed that my Lord Howard was at Cadiz with
Walter Raleigh and the young Earl of Sussex, and would by no means hear
of it. So Master Bailiff Stubbes, who, ’tis said, doth owe Sir Thomas
forty pound, and is therefore under his thumb, forthwith refused the
company license to play in Stratford guildhall, inn-yard, or common. And
at that the master-player threw his glove into Master Stubbes’s face,
and called Sir Thomas a stupid old bell-wether, and Stratford burgesses
silly sheep for following wherever he chose to jump.”
“And so they be,” sneered Hal Saddler.
“How?” cried Robin, hotly. “My father is a burgess. Dost thou call him a
sheep, Hal Saddler?”
“Nay, nay,” stammered Hal, hastily; “’twas not thy father I meant.”
“Then hold thy tongue with both hands,” said Robin, sharply, “or it will
crack thy pate for thee some of these fine days.”
“But come, Robin,” asked Nick, eagerly, “what became of the quarrel?”
“Well, when the master-player threw his glove into Master Stubbes’s
face, the Chief Constable seized him for contempt of Stratford Council,
and held him for trial. At that some cried ‘Shame!’ and some ‘Hurrah!’
but the rest of the players fled out of town in the night, lest their
baggage be taken by the law and they be fined.”
“Whither did they go?” asked Nick, both sorry and glad to hear that they
were gone.
“To Coventry, and left the master-player behind in gaol.”
“Why, they dare na use him so—the Lord Admiral’s own man!”
“Ay, that they don’t! Why, hark ’e, Nick! This morning, since Sir
Thomas has gone home, and the burgesses’ heads have all cooled down from
the sack and the clary they were in last night, la! but they are in a
pretty stew, my father says, for fear that they have given offense to
the Lord Admiral. So they have spoken the master-player softly, and
given him his freedom out of hand, and a long gold chain to twine about
his cap, to mend the matter with, beside.”
“Whee-ew!” whistled Nick. “I wish I were a master-player!”
“Oh, but he will not be pleased, and says he will have his revenge on
Stratford town if he must needs wait until the end of the world or go to
the Indies after it. And he has had his breakfast served in Master
Geoffrey Inchbold’s own room at the Swan, and swears that he will walk
the whole way to Coventry sooner than straddle the horse that the
burgesses have sent him to ride.”
“What! Is he at the inn? Why, let’s go down and see him.”
“Master Brunswood says that he will birch whoever cometh late,” objected
Hal Saddler.
“Birch?” groaned Nick. “Why, he does nothing but birch! A fellow can na
say his ‘_sum, es, est_’ without catching it. And as for getting through
the ‘genitivo’ and ‘vocativo’ without a downright threshing—” He
shrugged his shoulders ruefully as he remembered his unlearned lesson.
Everything had gone wrong with him that morning, and the thought of the
birching that he was sure to get was more than he could bear. “I will
na stand it any longer—I’ll run away!”
Kit Sedgewick laughed ironically. “And when the skies fall we’ll catch
sparrows, Nick Attwood,” said he. “Whither wilt thou run?”
Stung by his tone of ridicule, Nick out with the first thing that came
into his head. “To Coventry, after the stage-players,” said he,
defiantly.
The whole crowd gave an incredulous hoot.
Nick’s face flushed. To be crossed at home, to be birched at school, to
work all May-day in the tannery vats, and to be laughed at—it was
too much.
“Ye think that I will na? Well, I’ll show ye! ’Tis only eight miles to
Warwick, and hardly more than that beyond—no walk at all; and Diccon
Haggard, my mother’s cousin, lives in Coventry. So out upon your musty
Latin—English is good enough for me this day! There’s bluebells blowing
in the dingles, and cuckoo-buds no end. And while ye are all grinding at
your old Aesop I shall be roaming over the hills wherever I please.”
As he spoke he thought of the dark, wainscoted walls of the school-room
with their narrow little windows overhead, of the foul-smelling floors
of the tannery in Southam’s lane, and his heart gave a great, rebellious
leap. “Ay,” said he, exultantly, “I shall be out where the birds can
sing and the grass is green, and I shall see the stage-play, while ye
will be mewed up all day long in school, and have nothing but a beggarly
morris and a farthing May-pole on the morrow.”
“Oh, no doubt, no doubt,” said Hal Saddler, mockingly “We shall have
but bread and milk, and thou shalt have—a most glorious threshing from
thy father when thou comest home again!”
That was the last straw to Nick’s unhappy heart.
“’Tis a threshing either way,” said he, squaring his shoulders
doggedly. “Father will thresh me if I run away, and Master Brunswood
will thresh me if I don’t. I’ll not be birched four times a week for
merely tripping on a word, and have nothing to show for it but stripes.
If I must take a threshing, I’ll have my good day’s game out first.”
“But wilt thou truly go to Coventry, Nick?” asked Robin Getley,
earnestly, for he liked Nick more than all the rest.
“Ay, truly, Robin—that I will”; and, turning, Nick walked swiftly away
toward the market-place, never looking back.