The three looked questioningly at each other, while Marlowe, throwing
off the last trace of qualm, continued:
“I have just fled from the place of its commission, and thy first
utterance, Peele, unnerved me. I killed the man and he lies dead at
the Golden Hind in Deptford. It was in duel forced upon me. Francis
Frazer, the Count, they call him. I say that he lies dead, but others
will say that it is I. You look at me as though there were more riddles
and there are. You see the clothes I wear? Well, they are none of
mine. Mine are at the Golden Hind and on the dead. You see it was this
way. He came upon me when I was with the woman, his wife, it seems.
He demanded that I draw and defend myself. I did, and well, and then
thrust home. He fell. Here I have come. What way is clear?”
“A duel,” exclaimed Shakespere, admiringly, “and you killed him? Bravo!”
“Wherein lies the offense?” interrupted Peele.
“You do not understand; the combat was in his apartments where I had
intruded. There were no witnesses save his wife. She sides with me, but
what a cloud would be cast upon me before the Court, with the woman
swearing in my favor as against the dead husband? I say that death
would be the penalty.”
“But you say that you stripped the dead,” said Tamworth, “and whether
it was a vindictive murder, a duel, or done in self defense, such fact
must weigh heavily against thee. Art thou crazy, Kit? Why this garb? I
do not understand it.”
He had finished his questions with visible excitement, and with it
Marlowe arose.
“You are my friends,” he said, “the occasion calls for staunch ones.
Come, I need the aid of all.”
Instinctively they drew about the table as though closeness begat
confidence and strength. The light shown upon a true brotherhood of
souls united by common interests both for advancement and preservation.
Peele with clear and thoughtful eyes, and face still displaying
wonderment; Shakespere with the smooth-shaven visage of an actor, and
open, generous countenance; Tamworth with clear-cut features, cold eyes
and bearded chin and lip--all sat silent as their companion vividly
narrated the events of the night at the Deptford tavern. At its close
he paused, and then in the ensuing silence resumed:
“The past hath ended in a grave. You all see that. No broad road of
the life of yesterday is open to me. Henceforth darkness and obscurity
is my sole store. And wherein lies solace for such continuance of life?
Aye,” and his voice rang with the intensity of his feelings, “even a
livelihood is debarred me unless a mask conceals my workings.”
Again for an interval no words were spoken. Outside the fog had lifted
and a midnight rain was falling on the roof and beating against the
windows. Its patter pervaded the room. The Greek vases seemed waiting
to be filled; the red king on the arras appeared listening expectantly
for words of deliverance; the halberds glittered defiantly, as though
raised by hands ready in defense.
THE PASSING OF TABBARD.
_I see an angel hovers o’er thy head,_
_And with a vial full of precious grace,_
_Offers to pour the same into thy soul._
--_Faustus, scene xiv._
_His life was gentle, and the elements_
_So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up_
_And say to all the world, “This was a man:”_
--_Julius Cæsar, v, 5._
The Gloom that pervaded the great city during the prevalence of the
plague was a figure of changing size that at times came with a rush,
and again grew into place beside the hearth-stone, slowly and almost
imperceptibly, and then at length assumed such dreadful proportions
that the affrighted watchers buried their sad faces in trembling hands,
as if to drown the vision. A pall covered him from head to foot, and
his face was unseen; but there was a suspicion that it was fleshless,
and whether he came to the open stall or closed shop, before or after,
the visit there of the plague, his presence numbed the hands of toil,
and then either folded them in prayer, or dropped them in stolid
apathy. He pervaded almost every dwelling; he was where the morning
orisons arose in churches and cathedrals; he walked the open streets
even in the sunlight; he sat with the judge upon the bench; he knelt
with the bride at the altar, and even where full cups were lifted
high, with nods indicative of good health and peace, he came and went
like a restless spirit.
As Tabbard and Gyves slowly crossed the street from the office of the
Justice, a cart delayed their steps for a moment. Their breasts were
almost against its heavy wheels as it passed, and their eyes were on
a level with the top of its box, which was filled above its edges.
The jolting of the stones shook the contents so that the man in black
beside the driver, through fear of losing part of the load, kept his
eyes fixed upon the rear end-board of the cart.
“Ugh!” exclaimed Gyves, drawing back with a shudder, “’Tis the death
cart. See, they have piled them in like dead mutton.”
“Look at that stiff beggar with fallen chops hanging over the wheel,”
remarked Tabbard, with face wrinkling in his disgust.
“They are in too great haste to keep them properly covered. And this is
the earliest load I have seen hurried through the streets.”
“Don’t they carry at all times?” inquired Tabbard.
“Nay, only after sundown and just before sunup.”
“The plague must be growing worse,” remarked Tabbard, for the moment
longing for the fresh, sweet air of Kent, and heartily wishing that he
was out of that foggy street, which had suddenly grown as melancholy as
a church-yard of new-made graves. He almost forgot to limp, or lean
heavily on the constable as they reached the opposite walk.
“God save you, sir. It is breathing in every ward both north and south
of Holborn, Cheapside and Fenchurch, and as far west as Gray’s Inn and
Temple Bar. Red paint has gone up in price, I hear, for nearly every
house owner has had to buy some to daub the cross on his door. I saw
one man fall on Coleman street to-day, and in less than an hour he was
dead in the alley where they had moved him. Oh, man! it would be well
for you, if you had never ventured in from the fields; for I see that
you have the healthful looking face and air of a countryman.”
“Does one die quickly?” asked Tabbard, with a quaver in his voice.
“Too quickly to send either for doctor, or priest, in some cases,”
replied Gyves.
“And is there no help?”
“Little before and none after the black spots appear.”
“And do many die?”
“Thousands.”
“Near here?” inquired Tabbard, shuddering as he looked at the gloomy
buildings around him.
“Nay, mostly in the dwellings and tenements. With one death in the
family, you can count that every member will follow. Ah! here is the
Windmill.”
They turned from the sidewalk to mount the steps leading to the tavern.
The building was a quaint structure built by the Jews at least three
hundred years before. Once a synagogue, next a dwelling and then a
tavern, it had, despite all these changes in its use, maintained some
of the characteristics of each. Like a minister, who had become a
soldier and then deserted for some safer but less honorable calling, it
had retained an outward expression of sanctity in the narrow, pointed
lancet-windows in its front and its six-columned portico; while, as
evidence of its passage through an intermediate period, oriel windows
jutted out from what might be second and third stories. The painting
of a windmill, hanging between the two middle columns of the portico,
published the present purposes of the place with as loud a flourish as
trumpets might announce.
Into what was once the inner narthex of the synagogue, they passed. A
stone floor was under foot, while a low vaulted ceiling rose overhead,
its base being supported by attached columns with decorated capitals
and elaborately carved corbels. Here, where devout Hebrews had once
paused to arrange their gabardines, or stamp thoughts of usury for one
short session from their minds before entering the body of the church,
the sacrilegious Gentile had set his snares of destruction. It had
become the tap-room of the tavern.
Near the foot of the rood-stair, which once led to the gallery, stood
a brilliantly lighted bar, with a range of butts of Malmsey, kegs of
beer and sack, deep in the recess behind it; and on the near shelves,
against a bastard wall, was a glittering line of decanters, mugs and
tankards.
The heavy round tables were encircled by many persons drinking under
suspended lamps, and several groups of men were standing here and
there on the sanded floor. A quietness, except for the low buzz of
conversation and an occasional laugh, pervaded the room, thus speaking
well for the sobriety of the inmates and the respectability of the
tavern; still the crowd was as mixed as could be found anywhere except
in the middle aisle of St. Paul’s. There, in the nave of that famous
cathedral, dedicated to pious uses, in the aisles, before the ambries,
and beside the font, during intervals between divine service, horsemen,
usurers, cut-throats, beggars, bargainers of all kinds, doctors,
lawyers and noblemen, plied their avocations, held their meetings,
hatched their conspiracies and settled accounts.
Here there were no beggars, such being barred entrance; but their
tatters could be seen on the portico whenever the door swung open.
But men, in apparel fit for noblemen, walked in and out; others, with
the hardened visages of men who dreamt continually of the gallows and
shuddered at every flash of light across their paths, drank at the bar,
or gathered under some of the isolated columns.
At one table was a country squire in dun-colored serge coat, with full
bearded face, bending over a trencher filled with a half devoured
pheasant. Before him was his city cousin, in velvet cap, with a
lovelock suspended from under the green rim down across his ruffled
collar. Decorated with pointed mustachios and framed in powdered
periwig and high ruff, he was typical of the dandy of the period.
If the raw-boned, ungainly young man, with repellant features, who
monopolized the conversation at another table, was not Ben Jonson [note
33], then Gyves, who pointed him out to Tabbard, had selected some one
who looked enough like that genius, just rising to eminence, to be
confounded with him.
“He is an actor,” said Gyves, “who lately returned from the Low
Countries with the company of soldiers of which he was a volunteer, a
most companionable man: can drink deeper and swear louder than any one
around him.”
“Doth he make no choice of companions?” questioned Tabbard, noticing
that some of the group looked misplaced anywhere but dangling from a
gibbet’s arm.
“Not he,” said Gyves, “according to his stories, he has messed with
the worst of the cut-throats of the Straits, kept by the side of
clapperdoggers on their rounds, learned all the slang of the purlieus
of Cheapside, and would as lief hobnob with a ruffler as with a
nobleman or parish priest.”
“Hath he good sense?”
“The very best, I think, for I heard the Justice say that he wrote
plays of the people, and must mingle with them to learn their ways.”
By this time they had approached a vacant table, and as Tabbard seated
himself with pretended difficulty, he said, “Now sit you there; my
friend, and have one cup with me before you venture out.”
Gyves required no second invitation.
“’Tis a bad night to hunt the highways for clapperdoggers,” said he, as
he dropped into a chair, and pulling his whiskers glanced around the
room with an air of familiarity as great as that of a chained mastiff
in his own kennel.
“Is it a beggar you are after?” asked Tabbard with a forced air of
unconcern.
“Not exactly, and I correct my expression,” returned Gyves, “but one
even less harmful.”
“Some poor devil who has failed to attend church for a Sunday or two,
eh?” [note 34.]
“Nay, I took in two on such complaints this morning, but to-night I
shall hail in a blasphemer.”
“Hardly to-night,” thought Tabbard, and then he added aloud, “Doth not
thy conscience prick thee at times for dragging such men to jail?”
“I am but an instrument of the law,” replied the constable in deep
tones, at the same time striking his chest with his fingers evidently
in imitation of the voice and action of the Lord High Sheriff. “The man
who should have cold sweats is the accuser, the public informer.”
“Are there many of such curs?”
“Enough to keep us busy,” answered Gyves.
“And who has held thy nose to the hot scent?”
“Out cow-herd! I like not thy terms of address,” exclaimed Gyves,
bringing his fist down with a ring upon the table, “A hot scent with a
nose upon it raises the figure of a dog. It takes no keen wit to see
that. And as thou hast called it my nose, then forsooth, I am the dog.”
“Nay, nay!” exclaimed Tabbard, “I meant no offense. Here, I clink
glasses with thee as evidence of good-fellowship.”
They raised the glasses of wine which the drawer had set before them.
“Who was the accuser of the man you bear a warrant for?”
“Bame,” said the constable, lowering his voice. “He is one of the prime
movers against Papists and scoffers of religion.”
“Of the established church, eh?”
“Nay, a sour, morose Brownist, who strikes at all but his own sect.”
“A gad fly,” said Tabbard.
“An asp, more like; a carrion-eating swine!” exclaimed Gyves, as though
the words were the froth of bitter recollections.
“Is his rope long?”
“As long as the laws under which he acts.”
“And who is the accused in this case?”
“Chris--”
He checked himself and then continued:
“’Sdeath! When I get the reviler where liberty is a sweet memory
only, I will if I choose call aloud his name in every quarter but St.
Paul’s.”
“And why not there?”
“He hath attacked the church, ’tis said.”
“Canst thou not recollect his name, over this second glass?” inquired
Tabbard, smoothly.
“I said nothing of my recollection being faulty.”
“Hast thou the warrant? If thou hast let me see it,” said Tabbard,
with the air and tone of one in command. “Here, some more of that best
Rheinish wine,” he thundered to the drawer.
Gyves had never encountered so reckless a spendthrift. His admiration
was rising as every glass was lowered. He was in no hurry to go on his
quest. The foggy night, and the dark miles between the Windmill and the
Roman Wall caused him to embrace the glittering present. The tap-room
of the Windmill never appeared so enchanting. Tabbard, despite his
rusticity, was growing into a prince. The cultivated caution of the
constable oozed away, and he placed the warrant in Tabbard’s hands.
Just at that moment Bame walked into the tap-room and came hurriedly
toward the table. Tabbard had caught sight of him out of the corner of
his eye. He thrust the warrant in his pocket, at the same time giving a
significant glance at Gyves, who, with at first a motion that he would
retake the paper, subsided on noticing Bame. The latter said, as he
reached the table, “How now, Gyves, has the arrest been made?”
“Shortly, sir, shortly,” exclaimed Gyves, scarcely able to conceal his
surprise at seeing the sanctimonious-looking Brownist beside him in
the tap-room.
“Good faith, man! Get thee out quick, or the fellow will be fled. Thou
hast already squandered an hour here. Come, stir thyself!”
The tones were peremptory and husky with suppressed anger. Gyves knew
Bame’s power. He felt that temporary action was necessary to preserve
his office. True, he could not act without the warrant, and he dared
not expose to Bame his folly by demanding its return. So, hoping that
he could see Tabbard later, and, having procured the warrant, make the
arrest, he arose.
“I am off at once--” he said.
“Odds end!” exclaimed Bame savagely, “Don’t stop to mouth words. Push
along.”
“And where will you lodge?” asked the constable of Tabbard, who,
rejoicing over the complete relief he had secured for his friend Kit,
sat there apparently unconcerned.
“Here,” answered Tabbard.
Gyves turned and walked away from them. In going, Bame’s back was
toward him, but he saw the smiling face of Tabbard, and striking his
own breast, he made a motion with his hand as though to say, “The
warrant you have in your pocket deliver to me a little later.”
Tabbard nodded his head understandingly, and the troubled arm of the
law passed out of the old Jewry entrance.
Bame scrutinized the late companion of the constable for an interval
without changing his position. Tabbard stared back at him with an
expression of contempt and hatred, which changed to a smile of triumph
as he thought with what exultation he could tear the warrant into
shreds before Bame’s eyes. He itched to do it on the instant; but the
other man wheeled round and sought a table in a retired corner, from
where he continued his scrutiny of Tabbard. There was something about
the latter man which jarred a chord in Bame’s memory, and suddenly he
recognized him as the person who had been with Marlowe at the Dolphin.
This recognition, connected with the fact of the lately interrupted
meeting between Gyves and Tabbard, raised his suspicions, and his
watching became like that of a hawk.
Tabbard took out the warrant. He opened it curiously and examined the
seal. It was the only portion of the paper that assured him of the
legal character of the writ. Words in Greek could have conveyed as
much meaning as those printed and written on the paper. If he had been
convicted of felony, Tabbard would have suffered the severe penalty;
for the benefit of clergy would not have availed him. He could not read
the Lord’s Prayer in English print.
He folded the paper and then began tearing it into small bits. These
he scattered around him, feeling like a life convict taking the first
breath of air outside the broken wall of the prison. As he ground
the last pieces into the sand under his feet, he lifted his glass
of Rheinish wine and threw his head back to drain the contents. The
thought of “Sir Kit” was in his mind, a smile played upon his lips.
Could death strike us at the moment of accomplishing good for a friend
or for the human race, we might not parley but pass with glorified
faces into a peace assuredly in keeping with the joy kindled by the
generous act. With few the end comes so gloriously. To the soldier, the
martyr, the mother, such passing of the spirit is oft vouchsafed; the
first, falling at the head of the victorious forces on the captured
battlements; the second, amid flames at the stake; the last, with the
first breath of her infant upon her lips already damp with the dew of
dissolution.
In the position assumed by Tabbard for his last draught, the bright
flame of a suspended lamp flared in his eyes. To him it appeared to
swing in a circle, although in fact it was stationary; and the vaulted
ceiling seemed rising in air higher and higher, until he looked into
the darkness of absolute night. It was his head that swayed instead
of the lamp; it was the gradual failure of his eye-sight that raised
the phenomenon of the fading ceiling. A violent nausea seized him, so
that every fiber of his body shook and his glass fell shivered upon
the floor. He groaned so loudly that every one in the room turned his
face in his direction. And thus, before staring and startled faces, the
quivering man rolled from his chair to the sanded floor. A whisper
rose from every lip, except from the pair which grew white in distress.
The words were the same from all:
“The plague!”
The stricken man may have heard the two words, but it could have
conveyed no new tidings to his mind. Even the shiver of his frame from
a draught of cold air would have sprung the belief that the first
symptom of the Black Death had appeared. But there was no mistaking
the pang that shot through him, like an arrow from a long bow. Could
he have seen his face a few moments afterward as Bame saw it, turned
upward on the floor, he would have died more suddenly from fright;
hæmorrhagic spots discolored it--the unmistakable symbol of internal
dissolution. They looked like the black imprints of the fingers of a
hand that had been thrust with violence against it.
“Tell him he is safe,” came the broken words from lips moved by a
wandering mind.
“Who?” asked Bame, leaning over him.
The dying man did not answer, but the words “Deptford” and the “Earl’s
actors” were uttered in his rambling speech.
THE MOLDING OF THE MASK.
_Jove sometimes masked in a shepherd’s weed,_
_And by those steps, that he hath scaled the heavens,_
_May we become immortal like the gods._
--_I Tamburlaine, i, 2._
_Conceal me what I am, and be my aid_
_For such disguise as haply may become_
_The form of my intent._
--_Twelfth Night, i, 2._
The silence in Peele’s chamber at the Boar’s Head had continued many
minutes. The three hearers of Marlowe’s vivid recital looked at each
other expectantly; but as all had quaffed his cup of misery, silence
was alone the fit expression of their depth of feeling and interest.
The intense personality of the man had aroused in them sentiments like
those he entertained. They recognized his genius [note 18 to 24], the
height from which he had fallen, the deplorableness of his situation.
It was as though his intellect had unseated theirs and mounted on the
thrones thus vacated. Thus the boon companion of their riotous follies,
the good fellow, the well-beloved and revel-loving Kit, had in a thrice
vanished in thin air, and a veritable king of men assumed his place.
He had simply summoned the power that he knew was lodged within him,
deep in the inexhaustible fountain from which he had drawn his lines of
fire and figures of immortal mold.
“Let us calmly consider your situation,” at length said Tamworth,
looking feelingly at Marlowe, “Against thyself lieth now an accusation
of blasphemy upon which a warrant hath been issued. Even now,
undoubtedly, with this in hand, the officers shadow thy customary
haunts. During their search, news will soon come of thy death at
Deptford; for, from what thou sayeth of the unfortunate Frazer’s
resemblance to thee, he will be buried under thy name. The warrant will
be returned; the information pigeonholed, and thou wilt have little to
fear from that source.”
“Unless he goes abroad among those who know him,” ejaculated Peele.
“That can not be,” whispered Marlowe.
“Then we will take it, that, as Marlowe, thou art like one dead beyond
all resurrection,” continued the lawyer with emphasis.
“It can not be otherwise,” rejoined the subject of these comments,
“unless in some retreat of assured safety, and at some future time, I
reveal myself.”
“As the slayer of the Count?” was asked.
“There’s the rub,” whispered Marlowe, shaking his head.
“Well that is for later consideration,” said Tamworth calmly. “Let me
continue. On the morrow a hue and cry will be raised for the arrest of
Francis Frazer. The character which you have assumed for the last few
hours cannot avail thee further. It has answered its purpose. Thou
hast kept thy name from being sullied with the crime of murder. But as
the Count, or Francis Frazer, thou canst not walk forth.”
“Assuredly not,” said Peele.
“An arrest before noon would follow,” interrupted Shakespere, “and
then, thy trial, in which, perchance, the true situation of affairs
would come to light.”
“Wherein lieth safety?” asked Marlowe, raising his eyes and glancing
from one face to the other of his friends.
“A life of obscurity,” answered Tamworth, “is all I can see for thee,
unless thine efforts at concealment are undone; you deliver yourself up
and stand trial. I cannot guarantee an acquittal, but it is not going
too far to place firm hope in one.”
“No,” exclaimed Marlowe, “rather the concealment and obscurity than
such course. The die has been cast; so far it worketh well, and even
with an acquittal, this untried charge of blasphemy would stick in
the burr. What is it? How far doth it reach? Hast thou a copy of the
accusation?”
“I have,” said Peele, again producing the paper and handing it to
Marlowe.
“The severity and falsity of the charges appall me,” exclaimed Marlowe,
“nothing could be blacker. Are there no means to vindicate my name?”
“Your memory,” suggested Shakespere.
“True, that is all the world hath of me, but in all seriousness can not
this false swearer, Bame, be punished?”
“He can, if you desire it,” answered Tamworth.
“Desire it? What man would not demand it?”
“I know of none.”