appertaining unto this business.”
EUSEBY TREEN.
“Ay, verily; that your worship may never hold me for timorsome and
superstitious, I do furthermore add that some other than deer-stealers
was abroad. In sign whereof, although it was the dryest and clearest
night of the season, my jerkin was damp inside and outside when I reached
my house-door.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“I warrant thee, Euseby, the damp began not at the outside. A word in
thy ear—Lucifer was thy tapster, I trow.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Irreverent swine! hast no awe nor shame. Thou hast aggravated thy
offence, William Shakspeare, by thy foul-mouthedness.”
SIR SILAS.
“I must remind your worship that he not only has committed this iniquity
afore, but hath pawed the puddle he made, and relapsed into it after due
caution and reproof. God forbid that what he spake against me, out of
the gall of his proud stomach, should move me. I defy him, a low,
ignorant wretch, a rogue and vagabond, a thief and cut-throat, a — {66a}
monger and mutton-eater.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Your worship doth hear the learned clerk’s testimony in my behalf. ‘Out
of the mouth of babes and sucklings’—”
SIR THOMAS.
“Silas, the youth has failings—a madcap; but he is pious.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Alas, no, sir! Would I were! But Sir Silas, like the prophet, came to
curse, and was forced to bless me, even me, a sinner, a mutton-eater!”
SIR THOMAS.
“Thou urgedst him. He beareth no ill-will toward thee. Thou knewedst, I
suspect, that the blackness in his mouth proceeded from a natural cause.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“The Lord is merciful! I was brought hither in jeopardy; I shall return
in joy. Whether my innocence be declared or otherwise, my piety and
knowledge will be forwarded and increased; for your worship will
condescend, even from the judgment-seat, to enlighten the ignorant where
a soul shall be saved or lost. And I, even I, may trespass a moment on
your courtesy. I quail at the words _natural cause_. Be there any
such?”
SIR THOMAS.
“Youth! I never thought thee so staid. Thou hast, for these many
months, been represented unto me as one dissolute and light, much given
unto mummeries and mysteries, wakes and carousals, cudgel-fighters and
mountebanks and wanton women. They do also represent of thee—I hope it
may be without foundation—that thou enactest the parts, not simply of
foresters and fairies, girls in the green-sickness and friars, lawyers
and outlaws, but likewise, having small reverence for station, of kings
and queens, knights and privy-counsellors, in all their glory. It hath
been whispered, moreover, and the testimony of these two witnesses doth
appear in some measure to countenance and confirm it, that thou hast at
divers times this last summer been seen and heard alone, inasmuch as
human eye may discover, on the narrow slip of greensward between the Avon
and the chancel, distorting thy body like one possessed, and uttering
strange language, like unto incantation. This, however, cometh not
before me. Take heed! take heed unto thy ways; there are graver things
in law even than homicide and deer-stealing.”
SIR SILAS.
“And strong against him. Folks have been consumed at the stake for
pettier felonies and upon weaker evidence.”
SIR THOMAS.
“To that anon.”
William Shakspeare did hold down his head, answering nought. And Sir
Thomas spake again unto him, as one mild and fatherly, if so be that such
a word may be spoken of a knight and parliament-man. And these are the
words he spake:—
“Reason and ruminate with thyself now. To pass over and pretermit the
danger of representing the actions of the others, and mainly of lawyers
and churchmen, the former of whom do pardon no offences, and the latter
those only against God, having no warrant for more, canst thou believe it
innocent to counterfeit kings and queens? Supposest thou that if the
impression of their faces on a farthing be felonious and rope-worthy, the
imitation of head and body, voice and bearing, plume and strut, crown and
mantle, and everything else that maketh them royal and glorious, be aught
less? Perpend, young man, perpend! Consider, who among inferior mortals
shall imitate them becomingly? Dreamest thou they talk and act like
checkmen at Banbury fair? How can thy shallow brain suffice for their
vast conceptions? How darest thou say, as they do: ‘Hang this fellow;
quarter that; flay; mutilate; stab; shoot; press; hook; torture; burn
alive’? These are royalties. Who appointed thee to such office? The
Holy Ghost? He alone can confer it; but when wert thou anointed?”
William was so zealous in storing up these verities that he looked as
though he were unconscious that the pouring-out was over. He started,
which he had not done before, at the voice of Master Silas; but soon
recovered his complacency, and smiled with much serenity at being called
low-minded varlet.
“Low-minded varlet!” cried Master Silas, most contemptuously, “dost thou
imagine that king calleth king, like thy chums, _filcher_ and _fibber_,
_whirligig_ and _nincompoop_? Instead of this low vulgarity and sordid
idleness, ending in nothing, they throw at one another such fellows as
thee by the thousand, and when they have cleared the land, render God
thanks and make peace.”
Willy did now sigh out his ignorance of these matters; and he sighed,
mayhap, too, at the recollection of the peril he had run into, and had
ne’er a word on the nail. {70a}
The bowels of Sir Thomas waxed tenderer and tenderer; and he opened his
lips in this fashion:—
“Stripling! I would now communicate unto thee, on finding thee docile
and assentaneous, the instruction thou needest on the signification of
the words _natural cause_, if thy duty toward thy neighbour had been
first instilled into thee.”
Whereupon Master Silas did interpose, for the dinner hour was drawing
nigh.
“We cannot do all at once,” quoth he. “Coming out of order, it might
harm him. Malt before hops, the world over, or the beer muddies.”
But Sir Thomas was not to be pricked out of his form even by so shrewd a
pricker; and like unto one who heareth not, he continued to look most
graciously on the homely vessel that stood ready to receive his wisdom.
“Thy mind,” said he, “being unprepared for higher cogitations, and the
groundwork and religious duty not being well rammer-beaten and flinted, I
do pass over this supererogatory point, and inform thee rather, that
bucks and swans and herons have something in their very names announcing
them of knightly appurtenance; and (God forfend that evil do ensue
therefrom!) that a goose on the common, or a game-cock on the loft of a
cottager or villager, may be seized, bagged, and abducted, with far less
offence to the laws. In a buck there is something so gainly and so
grand, he treadeth the earth with such ease and such agility, he
abstaineth from all other animals with such punctilious avoidance, one
would imagine God created him when he created knighthood. In the swan
there is such purity, such coldness is there in the element he
inhabiteth, such solitude of station, that verily he doth remind me of
the Virgin Queen herself. Of the heron I have less to say, not having
him about me; but I never heard his lordly croak without the conceit that
it resembled a chancellor’s or a primate’s.
“I do perceive, William Shakspeare, thy compunction and contrition.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“I was thinking, may it please your worship, of the game-cock and the
goose, having but small notion of herons. This doctrine of abduction,
please your worship, hath been alway inculcated by the soundest of our
judges. Would they had spoken on other points with the same clearness.
How many unfortunates might thereby have been saved from crossing the
Cordilleras!” {72a}
SIR THOMAS.
“Ay, ay! they have been fain to fly the country at last, thither or
elsewhere.”
And then did Sir Thomas call unto him Master Silas, and say,—
“Walk we into the bay-window. And thou mayest come, Ephraim.”
And when we were there together, I, Master Silas, and his worship, did
his worship say unto the chaplain, but oftener looking toward me,—
“I am not ashamed to avouch that it goeth against me to hang this young
fellow, richly as the offence in its own nature doth deserve it, he
talketh so reasonably; not indeed so reasonably, but so like unto what a
reasonable man may listen to and reflect on. There is so much, too, of
compassion for others in hard cases, and something so very near in
semblance to innocence itself in that airy swing of lightheartedness
about him. I cannot fix my eyes (as one would say) on the shifting and
sudden _shade-and-shine_, which cometh back to me, do what I will, and
mazes me in a manner, and blinks me.”
At this juncture I was ready to fall upon the ground before his worship,
and clasp his knees for Willy’s pardon. But he had so many points about
him, that I feared to discompose ’em, and thus make bad worse. Besides
which, Master Silas left me but scanty space for good resolutions,
crying,—
“He may be committed, to save time. Afterward he may be sentenced to
death, or he may not.”
SIR THOMAS.
“’T were shame upon me were he not; ’t were indication that I acted
unadvisedly in the commitment.”
SIR SILAS.
“The penalty of the law may be commuted, if expedient, on application to
the fountain of mercy in London.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Maybe, Silas, those shall be standing round the fount of mercy who play
in idleness and wantonness with its waters, and let them not flow widely,
nor take their natural course. Dutiful gallants may encompass it, and it
may linger among the flowers they throw into it, and never reach the
parched lip on the wayside.
“These are homely thoughts—thoughts from a-field, thoughts for the study
and housekeeper’s room. But whenever I have given utterance unto them,
as my heart hath often prompted me with beatings at the breast, my
hearers seemed to bear toward me more true and kindly affection than my
richest fancies and choicest phraseologies could purchase.
“’T were convenient to bethink thee, should any other great man’s park
have been robbed this season, no judge upon the bench will back my
recommendation for mercy. And, indeed, how could I expect it? Things
may soon be brought to such a pass that their lordships shall scarcely
find three haunches each upon the circuit.”
“Well, Sir!” quoth Master Silas, “you have a right to go on in your own
way. Make him only give up the girl.”
Here Sir Thomas reddened with righteous indignation, and answered,—
“I cannot think it! such a stripling! poor, penniless; it must be some
one else.” And now Master Silas did redden in his turn, redder than Sir
Thomas, and first asked me,—
“What the devil do you stare at?” And then asked his worship,—
“Who should it be if not the rogue?” and his lips turned as blue as a
blue-bell. Then Sir Thomas left the window, and again took his chair,
and having stood so long on his legs, groaned upon it to ease him. His
worship scowled with all his might, and looked exceedingly wroth and
vengeful at the culprit, and said unto him,—
“Harkye, knave! I have been conferring with my learned clerk and
chaplain in what manner I may, with the least severity, rid the county
(which thou disgracest) of thee.”
William Shakspeare raised up his eyes, modestly and fearfully, and said
slowly these few words, which, had they been a better and nobler man’s,
would deserve to be written in letters of gold. I, not having that art
nor substance, do therefore write them in my largest and roundest
character, and do leave space about ’em, according to their rank and
dignity:—
“Worshipful sir!”
“A WORD IN THE EAR IS OFTEN AS GOOD AS A HALTER UNDER IT, AND SAVES THE
GROAT.”
“Thou discoursest well,” said Sir Thomas, “but others can discourse well
likewise. Thou shalt avoid; I am resolute.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“I supplicate your honour to impart unto me, in your wisdom, the mode and
means whereby I may surcease to be disgraceful to the county.”
SIR THOMAS.
“I am not bloody-minded.
“First, thou shalt have the fairest and fullest examination. Much hath
been deposed against thee; something may come forth for thy advantage. I
will not thy death; thou shalt not die.
“The laws have loopholes, like castles, both to shoot from and to let
folks down.”
SIR SILAS.
“That pointed ear would look the better for paring, and that high
forehead can hold many letters.”
Whereupon did William, poor lad! turn deadly pale, but spake not.
Sir Thomas then abated a whit of his severity, and said, staidly,—
“Testimony doth appear plain and positive against thee; nevertheless am I
minded and prompted to aid thee myself, in disclosing and unfolding what
thou couldst not of thine own wits, in furtherance of thine own defence.
“One witness is persuaded and assured of the evil spirit having been
abroad, and the punt appeared unto him diversely from what it appeared
unto the other.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“If the evil spirit produced one appearance, he might have produced all,
with deference to the graver judgment of your worship.
“If what seemed _punt_ was _devil_, what seemed _buck_ might have been
_devil_ too; nay, more easily, the horns being forthcoming.
“Thieves and reprobates do resemble him more nearly still; and it would
be hard if he could not make free with their bodies, when he has their
souls already.”
SIR THOMAS.
“But, then, those voices! and thou thyself, Will Shakspeare!”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“O might I kiss the hand of my deliverer, whose clear-sightedness
throweth such manifest and plenary light upon my innocence!”
SIR THOMAS.
“How so? What light, in God’s name, have I thrown upon it as yet?”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Oh! those voices! those faeries and spirits! whence came they? None can
deal with ’em but the devil, the parson, and witches. And does not the
devil oftentimes take the very form, features, and habiliments of
knights, and bishops, and other good men, to lead them into temptation
and destroy them? or to injure their good name, in failure of seduction?
“He is sure of the wicked; he lets them go their ways out of hand.
“I think your worship once delivered some such observation, in more
courtly guise, which I would not presume to ape. If it was not your
worship, it was our glorious lady the queen, or the wise Master
Walsingham, or the great Lord Cecil. I may have marred and broken it, as
sluts do a pancake, in the turning.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Why! ay, indeed, I had occasion once to remark as much.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“So have I heard in many places; although I was not present when Matthew
Atterend fought about it for the honour of Kineton hundred.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Fought about it!”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“As your honour recollects. Not but on other occasions he would have
fought no less bravely for the queen.”
SIR THOMAS.
“We must get thee through, were it only for thy memory,—the most precious
gift among the mental powers that Providence hath bestowed upon us. I
had half forgotten the thing myself. Thou mayest, in time, take thy
satchel for London, and aid good old Master Holingshed.
“We must clear thee, Will! I am slow to surmise that there is blood upon
thy hands!”
His worship’s choler had all gone down again; and he sat as cool and
comfortable as a man sitteth to be shaved. Then called he on Euseby
Treen, and said,—
“Euseby Treen! tell us whether thou observedst anything unnoticed or
unsaid by the last witness.”
EUSEBY TREEN.
“One thing only, sir!
“When they had passed the water an owlet hooted after them; and
methought, if they had any fear of God before their eyes they would have
turned back, he cried so lustily.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Sir, I cannot forbear to take the owlet out of your mouth. He knocks
them all on the head like so many mice. Likely story! One fellow hears
him cry lustily, the other doth not hear him at all!”
JOSEPH CARNABY.
“Not hear him! A body might have heard him at Barford or Sherbourne.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Why didst not name him? Canst not answer me?”
JOSEPH CARNABY.
“_He_ doubted whether punt were punt; I doubted whether owlet were owlet,
after Lucifer was away from the roll-call.
“We say, _Speak the truth and shame the devil_; but shaming him is one
thing, your honour, and facing him another! I have heard owlets, but
never owlet like him.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“The Lord be praised! All, at last, a-running to my rescue.
“Owlet, indeed! Your worship may have remembered in an ancient
book—indeed, what book is so ancient that your worship doth not remember
it?—a book printed by Doctor Faustus—”
SIR THOMAS.
“Before he dealt with the devil?”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Not long before, it being the very book that made the devil think it
worth his while to deal with him.”
SIR THOMAS.
“What chapter thereof wouldst thou recall unto my recollection?”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“That concerning owls, with the grim print afore it.
“Doctor Faustus, the wise doctor, who knew other than owls and owlets,
knew the tempter in that form. Faustus was not your man for fancies and
figments; and he tells us that, to his certain knowledge, it was verily
an owl’s face that whispered so much mischief in the ear of our first
parent.
“One plainly sees it, quoth Doctor Faustus, under that gravity which in
human life we call dignity, but of which we read nothing in the Gospel.
We despise the hangman, we detest the hanged; and yet, saith Duns Scotus,
could we turn aside the heavy curtain, or stand high enough a-tiptoe to
peep through its chinks and crevices, we should perhaps find these two
characters to stand justly among the most innocent in the drama. He who
blinketh the eyes of the poor wretch about to die doeth it out of mercy;
those who preceded him, bidding him in the garb of justice to shed the
blood of his fellow-man, had less or none. So they hedge well their own
grounds, what care they? For this do they catch at stakes and thorns, at
quick and rotten—”
Here Master Silas interrupted the discourse of the devil’s own doctor,
delivered and printed by him before he was the devil’s, to which his
worship had listened very attentively and delightedly. But Master Silas
could keep his temper no longer, and cried, fiercely, “Seditious
sermonizer! hold thy peace, or thou shalt answer for ’t before
convocation.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Silas! thou dost not approve, then, the doctrine of this Doctor Duns?”
SIR SILAS.
“Heretical Rabbi!”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“_If two of a trade can never agree_, yet surely two of a name may.”
SIR SILAS.
“Who dares call me heretical? who dares call me rabbi? who dares call me
Scotus? Spider! spider! yea, thou hast one corner left; I espy thee, and
my broom shall reach thee yet.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“I perceive that Master Silas doth verily believe I have been guilty of
suborning the witnesses, at least the last, the best man (if any
difference) of the two. No, sir, no. If my family and friends have
united their wits and money for this purpose, be the crime of perverted
justice on their heads! They injure whom they intended to serve.
Improvident men!—if the young may speak thus of the elderly; could they
imagine to themselves that your worship was to be hoodwinked and led
astray?”
SIR THOMAS.
“No man shall ever dare to hoodwink me, to lead me astray,—no, nor lead
me anywise. Powerful defence! Heyday! Sit quiet, Master Treen!—Euseby
Treen! dost hear me? Clench thy fist again, sirrah! and I clap thee in
the stocks.
“Joseph Carnaby! do not scratch thy breast nor thy pate before me.”
Now Joseph had not only done that in his wrath, but had unbuckled his
leathern garter, fit instrument for strife and blood, and peradventure
would have smitten, had not the knight, with magisterial authority,
interposed.
His worship said unto him, gravely,—
“Joseph Carnaby! Joseph Carnaby! hast thou never read the words ‘_Put up
thy sword_’?”
“Subornation! your worship!” cried Master Joe. “The fellow hath ne’er a
shilling in leather or till, and many must go to suborn one like me.”
“I do believe it of thee,” said Sir Thomas; “but patience, man! patience!
he rather tended toward exculpating thee. Ye have far to walk for
dinner; ye may depart.”
They went accordingly.
Then did Sir Thomas say, “These are hot men, Silas!”
And Master Silas did reply unto him,—
“There are brands that would set fire to the bulrushes in the mill-pool.
I know these twain for quiet folks, having coursed with them over
Wincott.”
Sir Thomas then said unto William, “It behooveth thee to stand clear of
yon Joseph, unless when thou mayest call to thy aid the Matthew Atterend
thou speakest of. He did then fight valiantly, eh?”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“His cause fought valiantly; his fist but seconded it. He won,—proving
the golden words to be no property of our lady’s, although her Highness
hath never disclaimed them.”
SIR THOMAS.
“What art thou saying?”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“So I heard from a preacher at Oxford, who had preached at Easter in the
chapel-royal of Westminster.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Thou! why, how could that happen? Oxford! chapel-royal!”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“And to whom I said (your worship will forgive my forwardness), ‘_I have
the honour_, _sir_, _to live within two measured miles of the very Sir
Thomas Lucy who spake that_.’ And I vow I said it without any hope or
belief that he would invite me, as he did, to dine with him thereupon.”
SIR THOMAS.
“There be nigh upon three miles betwixt this house and Stratford
bridge-end.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“I dropt a mile in my pride and exultation, God forgive me! I would not
conceal my fault.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Wonderful! that a preacher so learned as to preach before majesty in the
chapel-royal should not have caught thee tripping over a whole lawful
mile,—a good third of the distance between my house and the cross-roads.
This is incomprehensible in a scholar.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“God willed that he should become my teacher, and in the bowels of his
mercy hid my shame.”
SIR THOMAS.
“How camest thou into the converse of such eminent and ghostly men?”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“How, indeed?—everything against me!”
He sighed, and entered into a long discourse, which Master Silas would at
sundry times have interrupted, but that Sir Thomas more than once frowned
upon him, even as he had frowned heretofore on young Will, who thus began
and continued his narration:—
“Hearing the preacher preach at Saint Mary’s (for being about my father’s
business on Saturday, and not choosing to be a-horseback on Sundays,
albeit time-pressed, I footed it to Oxford for my edification on the
Lord’s day, leaving the sorrel with Master Hal Webster of the _Tankard
and Unicorn_)—hearing him preach, as I was saying, before the University
in St. Mary’s Church, and hearing him use moreover the very words that
Matthew fought about, I was impatient (God forgive me!) for the end and
consummation, and I thought I never should hear those precious words that
ease every man’s heart, ‘_Now to conclude_.’ However, come they did. I
hurried out among the foremost, and thought the congratulations of the
other doctors and dons would last for ever. He walked sharply off, and
few cared to keep his pace,—for they are lusty men mostly; and spiteful
bad women had breathed {89a} in the faces of some among them, or the
gowns had got between their legs. For my part, I was not to be balked;
so, tripping on aside him, I looked in his face askance. Whether he
misgave or how, he turned his eyes downward. No matter—have him I would.
I licked my lips and smacked them loud and smart, and scarcely venturing
to nod, I gave my head such a sort of motion as dace and roach give an
angler’s quill when they begin to bite. And this fairly hooked him.”
“‘Young gentleman!’ said he, ‘where is your gown?’
“‘Reverend sir!’ said I, ‘I am unworthy to wear one.’
“‘A proper youth, nevertheless, and mightily well-spoken!’ he was pleased
to say.
“‘Your reverence hath given me heart, which failed me,’ was my reply.
‘Ah! your reverence! those words about the devil were spicy words; but,
under favour, I do know the brook-side they sprang and flowered by. ’T
is just where it runs into Avon; ’t is called Hogbrook.’