one foot upon the ground to make the spring withal. I doubt whether we
shall leave thee this vantage.”
“Nay, nay! thou art hard upon him, Silas,” said the knight.
I was turning over the other papers taken from the pocket of the culprit
on his apprehension, and had fixed my eyes on one, when Sir Thomas caught
them thus occupied, and exclaimed,—
“Mercy upon us! have we more?”
“Your patience, worshipful sir!” said I; “must I forward?”
“Yea, yea,” quoth he, resignedly, “we must go through; we are pilgrims in
this life.”
Then did I read, in a clear voice, the contents of paper the second,
being as followeth:—
“THE MAID’S LAMENT.
“I loved him not; and yet, now he is gone,
I feel I am alone.
I check’d him while he spoke; yet, could he speak,
Alas! I would not check.
For reasons not to love him once I sought,
And wearied all my thought
To vex myself and him: I now would give
My love could he but live
Who lately lived for me, and when he found
’T was vain, in holy ground
He hid his face amid the shades of death!
I waste for him my breath
Who wasted his for me! but mine returns,
And this loin bosom burns
With stifling heat, heaving it up in sleep,
And waking me to weep
Tears that had melted his soft heart. For years
Wept he as bitter tears!
_Merciful God_! such was his latest prayer,
_These may she never share_!
Quieter is his breath, his breast more cold,
Than daisies in the mould,
Where children spell, athwart the churchyard gate,
His name and life’s brief date.
Pray for him, gentle souls, whoe’er you be,
And, oh! pray too for me!”
Sir Thomas had fallen into a most comfortable and refreshing slumber ere
this lecture was concluded; but the pause broke it, as there be many who
experience after the evening service in our parish-church. Howbeit, he
had presently all his wits about him, and remembered well that he had
been carefully counting the syllables, about the time when I had pierced
as far as into the middle.
“Young man,” said he to Willy, “thou givest short measure in every other
sack of the load. Thy uppermost stake is of right length; the undermost
falleth off, methinks.
“Master Ephraim, canst thou count syllables? I mean no offence. I may
have counted wrongfully myself, not being born nor educated for an
accountant.”
At such order I did count; and truly the suspicion was as just as if he
had neither been a knight nor a sleeper.
“Sad stuff! sad stuff, indeed!” said Master Silas, “and smelling of
popery and wax-candles.”
“Ay?” said Sir Thomas, “I must sift that.”
“If praying for the dead is not popery,” said Master Silas, “I know not
what the devil is. Let them pray for us; they may know whether it will
do us any good. We need not pray for them; we cannot tell whether it
will do them any. I call this sound divinity.”
“Are our churchmen all agreed thereupon?” asked Sir Thomas.
“The wisest are,” replied Master Silas.
“There are some lank rascals who will never agree upon anything but upon
doubting. I would not give ninepence for the best gown upon the most
thrifty of ’em; and their fingers are as stiff and hard with their
pedlary, knavish writing, as any bishop’s are with chalk-stones won
honestly from the gout.”
Sir Thomas took the paper up from the table on which I had laid it, and
said after a while,—
“The man may only have swooned. I scorn to play the critic, or to ask
any one the meaning of a word; but, sirrah!”
Here he turned in his chair from the side of Master Silas, and said unto
Willy,—
“William Shakspeare! out of this thraldom in regard to popery, I hope, by
God’s blessing, to deliver thee. If ever thou repeatest the said verses,
knowing the man to be to all intents and purposes a dead man, prythee
read the censurable line as thus corrected,—
‘Pray for our Virgin Queen, gentles! whoe’er you be.’
although it is not quite the thing that another should impinge so closely
on her skirts.
“By this improvement, of me suggested, thou mayest make some amends—a
syllable or two—for the many that are weighed in the balance and are
found wanting.”
Then turning unto me, as being conversant by my profession in such
matters, and the same being not very worthy of learned and staid clerks
the like of Master Silas, he said,—
“Of all the youths that did ever write in verse, this one verily is he
who hath the fewest flowers and devices. But it would be loss of time to
form a border, in the fashion of a kingly crown, or a dragon, or a Turk
on horseback, out of buttercups and dandelions.
“Master Ephraim! look at these badgers! with a long leg on one quarter
and a short leg on the other. The wench herself might well and truly
have said all that matter without the poet, bating the rhymes and metre.
Among the girls in the country there are many such _shilly-shallys_, who
give themselves sore eyes and sharp eye-water; I would cure them rod in
hand.”
Whereupon did William Shakspeare say, with great humility,—
“So would I, may it please your worship, an they would let me.”
“Incorrigible sluts! Out upon ’em! and thou art no better than they
are,” quoth the knight.
Master Silas cried aloud, “No better, marry! they at the worst are but
carted and whipped for the edification of the market-folks. {44a} Not a
squire or parson in the country round but comes in his best to see a man
hanged.”
“The edification then is higher by a deal,” said William, very
composedly.
“Troth! is it,” replied Master Silas. “The most poisonous reptile has
the richest jewel in his head; thou shalt share the richest gift bestowed
upon royalty, and shalt cure the king’s evil.” {45a}
“It is more tractable, then, than the church’s,” quoth William; and,
turning his face toward the chair, he made an obeisance to Sir Thomas,
saying,—
“Sir! the more submissive my behaviour is, the more vehement and
boisterous is Master Silas. My gentlest words serve only to carry him
toward the contrary quarter, as the south wind bloweth a ship northward.”
“Youth,” said Sir Thomas, smiling most benignly, “I find, and well indeed
might I have surmised, thy utter ignorance of winds, equinoxes, and
tides. Consider now a little! With what propriety can a wind be called
a south wind if it bloweth a vessel to the north? Would it be a south
wind that blew it from this hall into Warwick market-place?”
“It would be a strong one,” said Master Silas unto me, pointing his
remark, as witty men are wont, with the elbow-pan.
But Sir Thomas, who waited for an answer, and received none, continued,—
“Would a man be called a good man who tended and pushed on toward evil?”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“I stand corrected. I could sail to Cathay or Tartary {46a} with half
the nautical knowledge I have acquired in this glorious hall.
“The devil impelling a mortal to wrong courses, is thereby known to be
the devil. He, on the contrary, who exciteth to good is no devil, but an
angel of light, or under the guidance of one. The devil driveth unto his
own home; so doth the south wind, so doth the north wind.
“Alas! alas! we possess not the mastery over our own weak minds when a
higher spirit standeth nigh and draweth us within his influence.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Those thy words are well enough,—very well, very good, wise, discreet,
judicious beyond thy years. But then that _sailing_ comes in an awkward,
ugly way across me,—that _Cathay_, that _Tartarus_!
“Have a care! Do thou nothing rashly. Mind! an thou stealest my punt
for the purpose, I send the constable after thee or e’er thou art half
way over.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“He would make a stock-fish of me an he caught me. It is hard sailing
out of his straits, although they be carefully laid down in most
parishes, and may have taken them from actual survey.”
SIR SILAS.
“Sir, we have bestowed on him already well-nigh a good hour of our time.”
Sir Thomas, who was always fond of giving admonition and reproof to the
ignorant and erring, and who had found the seeds (little mustard-seeds,
’t is true, and never likely to arise into the great mustard-tree of the
Gospel) in the poor lad Willy, did let his heart soften a whit tenderer
and kindlier than Master Silas did, and said unto Master Silas,—
“A good hour of our time! Yea, Silas! and thou wouldst give _him_
eternity!”
“What, sir! would you let him go?” said Master Silas. “Presently we
shall have neither deer nor dog, neither hare nor coney, neither swan nor
heron; every carp from pool, every bream from brook, will be groped for.
The marble monuments in the church will no longer protect the leaden
coffins; and if there be any ring of gold on the finger of knight or
dame, it will be torn away with as little ruth and ceremony as the ring
from a butchered sow’s snout.”
“Awful words! Master Silas,” quoth the knight, musing; “but thou
mistakest my intentions. I let him not go; howbeit, at worst I would
only mark him in the ear, and turn him up again after this warning,
peradventure with a few stripes to boot athwart the shoulders, in order
to make them shrug a little, and shake off the burden of idleness.”
Now I, having seen, I dare not say the innocence, but the innocent and
simple manner of Willy, and pitying his tender years, and having an
inkling that he was a lad, poor Willy! whom God had endowed with some
parts, and into whose breast he had instilled that milk of
loving-kindness by which alone we can be like unto those little children
of whom is the household and kingdom of our Lord,—I was moved, yea, even
unto tears. And now, to bring gentler thoughts into the hearts of Master
Silas and Sir Thomas, who, in his wisdom, deemed it a light punishment to
slit an ear or two, or inflict a wiry scourging, I did remind his worship
that another paper was yet unread, at least to them, although I had been
perusing it.
This was much pleasanter than the two former, and overflowing with the
praises of the worthy knight and his gracious lady; and having an echo to
it in another voice, I did hope thereby to disarm their just wrath and
indignation. It was thus couched:—
“FIRST SHEPHERD.
“Jesu! what lofty elms are here!
Let me look through them at the clear,
Deep sky above, and bless my star
That such a worthy knight’s they are!
“SECOND SHEPHERD.
“Innocent creatures! how those deer
Trot merrily, and romp and rear!
“FIRST SHEPHERD.
“The glorious knight who walks beside
His most majestic lady bride,
“SECOND SHEPHERD.
“Under these branches spreading wide,
“FIRST SHEPHERD.
“Carries about so many cares
Touching his ancestors and heirs,
That came from Athens and from Rome—
“SECOND SHEPHERD.
“As many of them as are come—
“FIRST SHEPHERD.
“Nought else the smallest lodge can find
In the vast manors of his mind;
Envying not Solomon his wit—
“SECOND SHEPHERD.
“No, nor his women not a bit;
Being well-built and well-behavèd
As Solomon, I trow, or David.
“FIRST SHEPHERD.
“And taking by his jewell’d hand
The jewel of that lady bland,
He sees the tossing antlers pass
And throw quaint shadows o’er the grass;
While she alike the hour beguiles,
And looks at him and them, and smiles.
“SECOND SHEPHERD.
“With conscience proof ’gainst Satan’s shock,
Albeit finer than her smock, {50a}
Marry! her smiles are not of vanity,
But resting on sound Christianity.
Faith, you would swear, had nail’d {50b} her ears on
The book and cushion of the parson.”
“Methinks the rhyme at the latter end might be bettered,” said Sir
Thomas. “The remainder is indited not unaptly. But, young man, never
having obtained the permission of my honourable dame to praise her in
guise of poetry, I cannot see all the merit I would fain discern in the
verses. She ought first to have been sounded; and it being certified
that she disapproved not her glorification, then might it be trumpeted
forth into the world below.”
“Most worshipful knight,” replied the youngster, “I never could take it
in hand to sound a dame of quality,—they are all of them too deep and too
practised for me, and have better and abler men about ’em. And surely I
did imagine to myself that if it were asked of any honourable man
(omitting to speak of ladies) whether he would give permission to be
openly praised, he would reject the application as a gross offence. It
appeareth to me that even to praise one’s self, although it be shameful,
is less shameful than to throw a burning coal into the incense-box that
another doth hold to waft before us, and then to snift and simper over
it, with maidenly, wishful coyness, as if forsooth one had no hand in
setting it asmoke.”
Then did Sir Thomas, in his zeal to instruct the ignorant, and so make
the lowly hold up their heads, say unto him,—
“Nay, but all the great do thus. Thou must not praise them without leave
and license. Praise unpermitted is plebeian praise. It is presumption
to suppose that thou knowest enough of the noble and the great to
discover their high qualities. They alone could manifest them unto thee.
It requireth much discernment and much time to enucleate and bring into
light their abstruse wisdom and gravely featured virtues. Those of
ordinary men lie before thee in thy daily walks; thou mayest know them by
converse at their tables, as thou knowest the little tame squirrel that
chippeth his nuts in the open sunshine of a bowling-green. But beware
how thou enterest the awful arbours of the great, who conceal their
magnanimity in the depths of their hearts, as lions do.”
He then paused; and observing the youth in deep and earnest meditation
over the fruits of his experience, as one who tasted and who would fain
digest them; he gave him encouragement, and relieved the weight of his
musings by kind interrogation.
“So, then, these verses are thine own?” The youth answered,—
“Sir, I must confess my fault.”
SIR THOMAS.
“And who was the shepherd written here _Second Shepherd_, that had the
ill manners to interrupt thee? Methinks, in helping thee to mount the
saddle, he pretty nigh tossed thee over, {53a} with his jerks and
quirks.”
Without waiting for any answer, his worship continued his interrogations.
“But do you woolstaplers call yourselves by the style and title of
shepherds?”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Verily, sir, do we; and I trust by right. The last owner of any place
is called the master more properly than the dead and gone who once held
it. If that be true (and who doubts it?) we, who have the last of the
sheep, namely, the wool and skin, and who buy all of all the flock,
surely may more properly be called shepherds than those idle vagrants who
tend them only for a season, selling a score or purchasing a score, as
may happen.”
Here Sir Thomas did pause a while, and then said unto Master Silas,—
“My own cogitations, and not this stripling, have induced me to consider
and to conclude a weighty matter for knightly scholarship. I never could
rightly understand before how Colin Clout, and sundry others calling
themselves shepherds, should argue like doctors in law, physic, and
divinity.
“Silas! they were woolstaplers; and they must have exercised their wits
in dealing with tithe-proctors and parsons, and moreover with fellows of
colleges from our two learned universities, who have sundry lands held
under them, as thou knowest, and take the small tithes in kind. Colin
Clout, methinks, from his extensive learning, might have acquired enough
interest with the Queen’s Highness to change his name for the better,
and, furthermore, her royal license to carry armorial bearings, in no
peril of taint from so unsavoury an appellation.”
Master Silas did interrupt this discourse, by saying,—
“May it please your worship, the constable is waiting.”
Whereat Sir Thomas said, tartly,—
“And let him wait.” {55a}
Then to me,—
“I hope we have done with verses, and are not to be befooled by the lad’s
nonsense touching mermaids or worse creatures.”
Then to Will,—
“William Shakspeare! we live in a Christian land, a land of great
toleration and forbearance. Three score cartsful of fagots a year are
fully sufficient to clear our English air from every pestilence of heresy
and witchcraft. It hath not alway been so, God wot! Innocent and guilty
took their turns before the fire, like geese and capons. The spit was
never cold; the cook’s sleeve was ever above the elbow. Countrymen came
down from distant villages into towns and cities, to see perverters whom
they had never heard of, and to learn the righteousness of hatred. When
heretics waxed fewer the religious began to grumble that God, in losing
his enemies, had also lost his avengers.
“Do not thou, William Shakspeare, dig the hole for thy own stake. If
thou canst not make men wise, do not make them merry at thy cost. We are
not to be paganised any more. Having struck from our calendars, and
unnailed from our chapels, many dozens of decent saints, with as little
compunction and remorse as unlucky lads throw frog-spawn and tadpoles out
of stagnant ditches, never let us think of bringing back among us the
daintier divinities they ousted. All these are the devil’s imps,
beautiful as they appear in what we falsely call works of genius, which
really and truly are the devil’s own,—statues more graceful than
humanity, pictures more living than life, eloquence that raised single
cities above empires, poor men above kings. If these are not Satan’s
works, where are they? I will tell thee where they are likewise. In
holding vain converse with false gods. The utmost we can allow in
propriety is to call a knight Phœbus, and a dame Diana. They are not
meat for every trencher.
“We must now proceed straightforward with the business on which thou
comest before us. What further sayest thou, witness?”
EUSEBY TREEN.
“His face was toward me; I saw it clearly. The graver man followed him
into the punt, and said, roughly, ‘We shall get hanged as sure as thou
pipest.’
“Whereunto he answered,—
‘Naturally, as fall upon the ground
The leaves in winter and the girls in spring.’
And then began he again with the mermaid; whereat the graver man clapped
a hand before his mouth, and swore he should take her in wedlock, to have
and to hold, if he sang another stave. ‘And thou shalt be her pretty
little bridemaid,’ quoth he gaily to the graver man, chucking him under
the chin.”
SIR THOMAS.
“And what did Carnaby say unto thee, or what didst thou say unto
Carnaby?”
EUSEBY TREEN.
“Carnaby said unto me, somewhat tauntingly, ‘The big squat man, that lay
upon thy bread-basket like a nightmare, is a punt at last, it seems.’
“‘Punt, and more too,’ answered I. ‘Tarry awhile, and thou shalt see
this punt (so let me call it) lead them into temptation, and swamp them
or carry them to the gallows; I would not stay else.’”
SIR THOMAS.
“And what didst thou, Joseph Carnaby?”
JOSEPH CARNABY.
“Finding him neither slack nor shy, I readily tarried. We knelt down
opposite each other, and said our prayers; and he told me he was now
comfortable. ‘The evil one,’ said he, ‘hath enough to mind yonder: he
shall not hurt us.’
“Never was a sweeter night, had there been but some mild ale under it,
which any one would have sworn it was made for. The milky way looked
like a long drift of hail-stones on a sunny ridge.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Hast thou done describing?”
JOSEPH CARNABY.
“Yea, an please your worship.”
SIR THOMAS.
“God’s blessing be upon thee, honest Carnaby! I feared a moon-fall. In
our days nobody can think about a plum-pudding but the moon comes down
upon it. I warrant ye this lad here hath as many moons in his poems as
the Saracens had in their banners.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“I have not hatched mine yet, sir. Whenever I do I trust it will be
worth taking to market.”
JOSEPH CARNABY.
“I said all I know of the stars; but Master Euseby can run over half a
score and upward, here and there. ‘Am I right, or wrong?’ cried he,
spreading on the back of my hand all his fingers, stiff as antlers and
cold as icicles. ‘Look up, Joseph! Joseph! there is no Lucifer in the
firmament!’ I myself did feel queerish and qualmy upon hearing that a
star was missing, being no master of gainsaying it; and I abased my eyes,
and entreated of Euseby to do in like manner. And in this posture did we
both of us remain; and the missing star did not disquiet me; and all the
others seemed as if they knew us and would not tell of us; and there was
peace and pleasantness over sky and earth. And I said to my companion,—
“‘How quiet now, good Master Euseby, are all God’s creatures in this
meadow, because they never pry into such high matters, but breathe
sweetly among the pig-nuts. The only things we hear or see stirring are
the glow-worms and dormice, as though they were sent for our edification,
teaching us to rest contented with our own little light, and to come out
and seek our sustenance where none molest or thwart us.’”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Ye would have it thus, no doubt, when your pockets and pouches are full
of gins and nooses.”
SIR THOMAS.
“A bridle upon thy dragon’s tongue! And do thou, Master Joseph, quit the
dormice and glow-worms, and tell us whither did the rogues go.”
JOSEPH CARNABY.
“I wot not after they had crossed the river they were soon out of sight
and hearing.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Went they toward Charlecote?”
JOSEPH CARNABY.
“Their first steps were thitherward.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Did they come back unto the punt?”
JOSEPH CARNABY.
“They went down the stream in it, and crossed the Avon some fourscore
yards below where we were standing. They came back in it, and moored it
to the sedges in which it had stood before.”
SIR THOMAS.
“How long were they absent?”
JOSEPH CARNABY.
“Within an hour, or thereabout, all the three men returned. Will
Shakspeare and another were sitting in the middle, the third punted.
“‘Remember now, gentles!’ quoth William Shakspeare, ‘the road we have
taken is henceforward a footpath for ever, according to law.’
“‘How so?’ asked the punter, turning toward him,
“‘Forasmuch as a corpse hath passed along it,’ answered he.
“Whereupon both Euseby and myself did forthwith fall upon our faces,
commending our souls unto the Lord.”
SIR THOMAS.
“It was then really the dead body that quivered so fearfully upon the
water, covering all the punt! Christ, deliver us! I hope the keeper
they murdered was not Jeremiah. His wife and four children would be very
chargeable, and the man was by no means amiss. Proceed! what further?”
“On reaching the bank, ‘I never sat pleasanter in my lifetime,’ said
William Shakspeare, ‘than upon this carcass.’”
SIR THOMAS.
“Lord have mercy upon us! Thou upon a carcass, at thy years!”
And the knight drew back his chair half an ell farther from the table,
and his lips quivered at the thought of such inhumanity.
“And what said he more? and what did he?” asked the knight.
JOSEPH CARNABY.
“He patted it smartly, and said, ‘Lug it out; break it.’”
SIR THOMAS.
“These four poor children! who shall feed them?”
SIR SILAS.
“Sir! in God’s name have you forgotten that Jeremiah is gone to Nuneaton
to see his father, and that the murdered man is the buck?”
SIR THOMAS.
“They killed the buck likewise. But what, ye cowardly varlets! have ye
been deceiving me all this time? And thou, youngster! couldst thou say
nothing to clear up the case? Thou shalt smart for it. Methought I had
lost by a violent death the best servant ever man had—righteous, if there
be no blame in saying it, as the prophet whose name he beareth, and brave
as the lion of Judah.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Sir, if these men could deceive your worship for a moment, they might
deceive me for ever. I could not guess what their story aimed at, except
my ruin. I am inclined to lean for once toward the opinion of Master
Silas, and to believe it was really the stolen buck on which this William
(if indeed there is any truth at all in the story) was sitting.”
SIR THOMAS.
“What more hast thou for me that is not enigma or parable?”
JOSEPH CARNABY.
“I did not see the carcass, man’s or beast’s, may it please your worship,
and I have recited and can recite that only which I saw and heard. After
the words of lugging out and breaking it, knives were drawn accordingly.
It was no time to loiter or linger. We crope back under the shadow of
the alders and hazels on the high bank that bordereth Mickle Meadow, and,
making straight for the public road, hastened homeward.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Hearing this deposition, dost thou affirm the like upon thy oath, Master
Euseby Treen, or dost thou vary in aught essential?”
EUSEBY TREEN.
“Upon my oath I do depose and affirm the like, and truly the identical
same; and I will never more vary upon aught essential.”
SIR THOMAS.