IN THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE
In a garden near the old bear-yard, among tall rose-trees which would
soon be in bloom, a merry company of men were sitting around a table
which stood in the angle of a quick-set hedge beside a path graveled
with white stones and bordered with mussel-shells.
There was a house hard by with creamy-white walls, green-shuttered
windows, and a red-tiled roof. The door of the house was open, showing a
little ruddy fire upon a great hearth, kindled to drive away the damp;
and in the windows facing the garden there were lights shining warmly
out among the rose-trees.
The table was spread with a red damask cloth, on which were a tray of
raisins and nuts and a small rally of silver cups. Above the table an
apple-tree nodded its new leaves, and from an overhanging bough a
lantern hung glowing like a great yellow bee.
There was a young fellow with a white apron and a jolly little whisper
of a whistle on his puckered lips going around with a plate of cakes and
a tray of honey-bowls; and the men were eating and drinking and
chatting together so gaily, and seemed to be all such good friends, that
it was a pleasant thing just to see them sitting there in their
comfortable leather-bottomed chairs, taking life easily because the
spring had come again.
One tall fellow was smoking a pipe. He held the bowl in one hand, and
kept tamping down the loose tobacco with his forefinger. Now and again
he would be so eagerly talking he would forget that his finger was in
the bowl, and it would be burned. He would take it out with a look of
quaint surprise, whereat the rest all roared. Another was a fat, round
man who chuckled constantly to himself, as if this life were all a joke;
and there was a quite severe, important-seeming, oldish man who said,
“Hem—hem!” from time to time, as if about to speak forthwith, yet never
spoke a word. There was also among the rest a raw-boned, lanky fellow
who had bitten the heart out of an oat-cake and held the rim of it in
his fingers like a new moon, waving it around while he talked, until the
little man beside him popped it deftly out of his grasp and ate it
before the other saw where it was gone. But when he made out what was
become of that oat-cake he rose up solemnly, took the little man by the
collar as a huntsman takes a pup, and laid him softly in the grass
without a word.
What a laughing and going-on was then! It was as if they all were
growing young again. And in the middle of the row a head popped over the
quick-set hedge, and a most stentorian voice called out, “Here, here! Go
slow—I want a piece of that!”
They all looked up, and the moment they spied that laughing face and
cloak of Holland cloth, raised a shout of “What, there!” “Well met!”
“Come in, Ben.” “Where hast thou tarried so long?” and the like; while
the waiter ran to open the gate and let the stranger in.
A quiet man with a little chestnut-colored beard and hazel eyes, which
lit up quickly at sight of the stranger over the hedge, arose from his
place by the table and went down the path with hands outstretched to
greet him.
“Welcome, welcome, hurly-burly Ben,” said he. “We’ve missed thee from
the feast. Art well? And what’s the good word?”
“Ah, Will, thou gentle rogue!” the other cried, catching the hands of
the quiet man and holding him off while he looked at him there. “How
thou stealest one’s heart with the glance of thine eye! I was going to
give thee a piece of my mind; but a plague, old heart! who could chide
thee to thy face? Am I well? Ay, exceedingly well. And the news? Jove!
the best that was baked at the Queen’s to-day, and straight from the
oven-door! The thing is done—huff, puff, and away we go! But come
on—this needs telling to the rest.”
They came up the path together, the big man crunching the mussel-shells
beneath his sturdy tread, and so into the circle of yellow light that
came down from the lantern among the apple-leaves, the big man with his
arm around the quiet man’s shoulders, holding his hand; for the quiet
man was not so large as the other, although withal no little man
himself, and very well built and straight.
His tabard was black, without sleeves, and his doublet was scarlet
silk. His collar and wrist-bands were white Holland linen turned loosely
back, and his face was frank and fair and free. He was not old, but his
hair was thin upon his brow. His nose and his full, high forehead were
as cleanly cut as a finely chiseled stone; and his sensitive mouth had a
curve that was tender and sad, though he smiled all the while, a glimpse
of his white teeth showing through, and his little mustache twitching
with the ripple of his long upper lip. His flowing hair was
chestnut-colored, like his beard, and curly at the ends; and his
melancholy eyelids told of study and of thought; but under them the
kindly eyes were bright with pleasant fancy.
“What, there, all of you!” said he; “a good investment for your ears!”
“Out with it, Will!” they cried, and whirled around.
“The Queen hath made Lord Hunsdon chamberlain,” the big man said.
An instant’s hush fell on the garden. No one spoke; but they caught each
other by the hand, and, suddenly, the silence there seemed somehow
louder than a shout.
“We’ll build the new Globe play-house, lads, and sweep the Bankside
clean from end to end!” a sturdy voice broke sharply on the hush. And
then they cheered—a cheer so loud that people on the river stopped
their boats, and came ashore asking where the fire was. And over all the
cheering rose the big man’s voice; for the quiet man was silent, and the
big man cheered for two.
“Pull up thy rose-bushes, Will,” cried one, “and set out laurels in
their stead—thou’lt need them all for crowns.”
“Ay, Will, our savor is not gone—Queen Bess knows salt!”
“With Will and Ben for meat and crust, and the rest of us for seasoning,
the court shall say it never ate such master pie!”
“We’ll make the walls of Whitehall ring come New Year next, or Twelfth
Night and Shrove Tuesday.”
“Ay, that we will, old gossip! Here’s to thee!”
“Here’s to the company, all of us!”
“And a health to the new Lord Chamberlain!”
“God save the Queen!”
With that, they shook each other’s hands, as merry as men could be, and
laughed, because their hearts ran short of words; for these were young
Lord Hunsdon’s men, late players to the Queen in the old Lord
Chamberlain’s troupe; who, for a while deprived of favor by _his_ death,
were now, by this succession of his son, restored to prestige at the
court, and such preferment as none beside them ever won, not even the
Earl of Pembroke’s company.
There was Kemp, the stout tragedian; gray John Lowin, the walking-man;
Diccon Burbage, and Cuthbert his brother, master-players and managers;
Robin Armin, the humorsome jester; droll Dick Tarlton, the king of
fools. There was Blount, and Pope, and Hemynge, and Thomas Greene, and
Joey Taylor, the acting-boy, deep in the heart of a honey-bowl, yet who
one day was to play “Hamlet” as no man ever has played it since. And
there were others, whose names and doings have vanished with them; and
beside these—“What, merry hearts!” the big man cried, and clapped his
neighbor on the back; “we’ll have a supper at the Mermaid Inn. We’ll
feast on reason, reason on the feast, toast the company with wit, and
company the wit with toast—why, pshaw, we are good fellows all!” He
laughed, and they laughed with him. _That_ was “rare Ben Jonson’s” way.
“There’s some one knocking, master,” said the boy.
A quick tap-tapping rattled on the wicket-gate.
“Who is it?” asked the quiet man.
“’Tis Edmund with the news,” cried one.
“I’ve dished him,” said Ben Jonson.
“’Tis Condell come to raise our wages,” said Robin Armin, with a grin.
“Thou’lt raise more hopes than wages, Rob,” said Tarlton, mockingly.
“It is a boy,” the waiter said, “who saith that he must see thee,
master, on his life.”
The quiet man arose.
“Sit down, Will,” said Greene; “he’ll pick thy pocket with a doleful
lie.”
“There’s nothing in it, Tom, to pick.”
“Then give him no more than half,” said Armin, soberly, “lest he
squander it!”
“He saith he comes from Stratford town,” the boy went on.
“Then tell him to go back again,” said Master Ben Jonson; “we’ve sucked
the sweet from Stratford town—be off with his seedy dregs!”
“Go bring him in,” said the quiet man.
“Nay, Will, don’t have him in. This makes the third within the
month—wilt father all the strays from Stratford town? Here, Ned, give
him this shilling, and tell him to be off to his cony-burrow as fast as
his legs can trot.”
“We’ll see him first,” said the quiet man, stopping the other’s shilling
with his hand.
“Oh, Willy-nilly!” the big man cried; “wilt be a kite to float all the
draggle-tails that flutter down from Warwickshire?”
“Why, Ben,” replied the quiet man, “’tis not the kite that floats the
tail, but the wind which floats both kite and tail. Thank God, we’ve
caught the rising wind; so, hey for draggle-tails!—we’ll take up all
we can.”
The waiter was coming up the path, and by his side, a little back,
bareheaded and flushed with running, came Nicholas Attwood. He had
followed the big man through the fields from the gates of the
Falcon Inn.
He stopped at the edge of the lantern’s glow and looked around
uncertain, for the light was in his eyes.
“Come, boy, what is it?” asked Ben Jonson.
Nick peered through the brightness. “Master Will—Master Will
Shakspere!” he gasped.
“_Well, my lady_,” said the quiet man; “_what wilt thou have of me_?”
Nick Attwood had come to his fellow-townsman at last.
Over the hedge where the lantern shone through the green of the
apple-leaves came a sound of voices talking fast, a listening hush, then
a clapping of hands, with mingled cries of “Good boy!” “Right, lad; do
not leave her till thou must!” and at the last, “What! take thee home to
thy mother, lad? Ay, marry, that will I!” And the _last_ was the voice
of the quiet man.
Then followed laughter and scraps of song, merry talking, and good
cheer, for they all made glad together.
* * * * *
Across the fields beyond the hedge the pathway ran through Paris Garden,
stark and clear in the white moon-shine, save here and there where the
fog from the marsh crept down to meet the river-mist, and blotted out
the landscape as it went. In the north lay London, stirring like a
troubled sea. In the south was drowsy silence, save for the crowing of
the cocks, and now and then the baying of a hound far off. The smell of
bears was on the air; the river-wind breathed kennels. The Swan
play-house stood up, a great, blue blank against the sky. The sound of
voices was remote. The river made a constant murmur in the murk beyond
the landing-place; the trees moved softly.
Low in the west, the lights of the Falcon Inn were shrunk to pin-pricks
in the dark. They seemed to wink and to shut their eyes. It was too far
to see the people passing by.
On a sudden one light winked and did not open any more; and through the
night a faint, far cry came drifting down the river-wind—a long, thin
cry, like the wavering screech of an owl—a shrill, high, ugly sound;
the lights began to wink, wink, wink, to dance, to shift, to gather into
one red star. Out of the darkness came a wisp of something moving in
the path.
Where the moonlight lay it scudded like the shadow of a windy cloud, now
lost to sight, now seen again. Out of the shadow came a man, with hands
outstretched and cap awry, running as if he were mad. As he ran he
looked from side to side, and turned his head for the keener ear. He was
panting hard.
When he reached the ditch he paused in fault, ran on a step or two, went
back, stood hesitating there, clenching his hands in the empty wind,
listening; for the mist was grown so thick that he could scarcely see.
But as he stood there doubtfully, uncertain of the way, catching the
wind in his nervous hands, and turning about in a little space like an
animal in a cage, over the hedge through the apple-boughs a boy’s clear
voice rose suddenly, singing a rollicking tune, with a snapping of
fingers and tapping of feet in time to its merry lilt.
Then the man in the mist, when he heard that clear, high voice, turned
swiftly to it, crying out, “The Skylark! Zooks! It is the place!” and
ran through the fog to where the lantern glimmered through the hedge.
The light fell in a yellow stream across his face. He was pale as a
ghost. “What, there, within! What, there!” he panted. “Shakspere!
Jonson! Any one!”
The song stopped short. “Who’s there?” called the voice of the quiet
man.
“’Tis I, Tom Heywood. there’s to-do for players at the Falcon Inn.
Gaston Carew hath stabbed Fulk Sandells, for cheating at the dice, as
dead as a door-nail, and hath been taken by the watch!”