DOMESTIC AFFLICTIONS.
It is evening--damp, dreary, and heavy, like the day which has preceded
it.
An unwholesome closeness pervades the air; a heavy drizzling rain
descends from the clouds upon the earth, enveloping all around in a
dense mist, which hides the surrounding scenery.
Leaving his home, the youthful Shakespeare takes his way across the
meadows, in which our readers may remember to have first seen him in the
opening chapter of this story. His step, however, is less buoyant, and
his heart is heavier than on that occasion. The clouds, which drive
steadily on, are not less gloomy than his presentiments. Sickness and
misery are amongst the neighbours he leaves; sickness and sorrow are
amongst those he seeks.
Yet still as that youth wends onwards, now crossing through the fern
(laden and heavy with moisture,) now diving into the thick plantations
which lead into the chase of Clopton, nothing escapes his notice. The
crow, "as it wings to the rocky wood," in the thickening light,--the
coney, as it flashes into the cover,--the darting lizard, as it
disappears in the thick fern,--the stoat and weasel, as they pounce upon
their prey in the brake, all are noted by him.
His mind was oppressed and desponding, but it was a mind which no
circumstances could entirely destroy the elasticity of, even for a
moment. "There is a pleasure in the pathless woods," it hath been said
by a modern poet; and there is society where none intrudes. But perhaps
the feeling of pleasure experienced amidst solitude and sylvan scenery
is only really and intensely felt by men of extraordinary parts and
poetical imagination.
The fairest glade, and the wildest haunts of the untamed denizens of the
woods, it was young Shakespeare's great delight to seek out and ponder
amidst.
At the present moment he felt that no locality would soothe the sadness
of his thoughts so well as the leafy covert he was in.
Even whilst the heavy rain was pattering amidst the foliage, and
dropping from the surcharged boughs; the air misty and moist; and the
darksome glade rendered more gloomy by the murky atmosphere, there was
indeed to his eye and mind, something fresh to be remarked around in the
changeful hue of the herbs, plants, and thick foliage, as the driving
clouds constantly varied them; nay (as we have said,) the gloomy and
dull aspect of the wood at that moment better suited his troubled
thoughts than a more bright and splendid scene.
Some slight intimation of the troubles of his friends at the Hall had
reached him; he had received a hint of the arrest of Sir Hugh, and the
absence of his friend Arderne. He also knew that the fair Charlotte was
unwell; and naturally attributing her illness to the shock she had
received at the arrest of her father, he hoped that a few days would
restore her to health. Still a presentiment of evil, and which he
conceived was consequent upon the unhappy state of the town in which he
had lived, pervaded his mind.
He had occasionally visited the neighbourhood of the Hall, and made some
inquiry after the inmates; but in the absence of the good knight, and
his friend Arderne, he had not considered it consistent with propriety
to introduce himself into the house, coming as he did from a place
infected with the plague.
On this evening, however, he resolved to gain some more assured tidings
of those he felt so much interested in; and after pondering upon the
matter, he resolved to approach the hall.
There was a solitude and silence about the house, as he gazed at it from
the belt of plantation by which he approached, that he could not account
for. No smoke ascended, from those huge twisted chimneys; no sound (save
an occasional dismal and long-drawn howl) came from the kennel. No
person was to be seen, as of yore, flitting about, engaged in the
numerous avocations of their daily duties. All looked dull and deserted.
He entered the court in rear, and proceeded to the stabling. The stables
were for the most part empty, the steeds had been turned into the chase,
and deserted by their attendants. He looked into the falconry; the hawks
were upon the perch, and apparently well fed and attended to, for at
that period a falconer would have as soon deserted his children as his
hawks, but the attendants were at the moment absent; they had fled from
the Hall, and located themselves in some out-buildings in the woods. As
he entered the house, the same appearance of desertion struck his eye.
He passed through a long passage, and gained the hall. There hung the
old tattered banners, the unscoured armour, and the antlered heads of
several large stags,--stags of ten,--all spoke of recent occupation and
use. The cross-bow lay where it had been thrown a few days before; the
thick hawking gauntlets and the dog-couples were mingled with whips and
spurs, bits and bridles, and all the _melange_ of the chase and the
country gentleman's occupation, but of servants or inhabitants there was
no sign. He passed into the oak-pannelled room where he had first
enjoyed the society of the family, and learned to love them for their
worth. All looked desolate. The solitude and silence around made his
presence seem an intrusion. The innate modesty of his disposition
overcame his anxiety to hear tidings of the invalid. He felt as if
prying into the secret sorrows of the owner of the mansion, and was
about to withdraw, when the door opened, and Martin entered the room.
Martin started as he recognised the visitor, and a slight frown seemed
to cross his brow. He was a curious compound, that man. He half disliked
the youth for the virtues he at the same time admired in him, and which
he saw had also won the love of the daughter of his patron, and which
under no circumstance he considered could lead to a happy result,--now,
however, all was at an end.
"Ah," he said, "art _thou_ here? Art thou come to Clopton when all else
desert it?"
"My anxiety to learn tidings of the family hath made me an intruder on
your privacy," said Shakespeare. "I hope----"
"We have no hope," said Martin; "and you are not wise in coming hither.
Yon have surely heard of our misery. Charlotte Clopton is dying. Dying
of the plague. The nurse has just caught it of her and sickens too. All
have fled from the Hall."
A few moments more, and Shakespeare had sprung up the great staircase,
and sought the chamber of the invalid, Martin hastening after him, and
in vain urging him not to enter her room. "The disease is of the most
malignant character," he said. "The leech hath left the house unable to
do us any good. 'Tis but a tempting of Providence to enter the room. I
pr'ythee have thought upon your own safety."
"Perish all thoughts of self and safety!" said Shakespeare, dashing his
hat upon the floor as he entered the chamber. "O fairest flower," he
said, "cut down and blighted in thy budding beauty, do I indeed behold
thee again thus--so soon to part with thee for ever?"
He knelt down beside her bed, took her hand, and carried it to his lips.
Her long luxuriant tresses, which had escaped from the ribbon that bound
them, covered the white pillow like a cloud, and half-concealed her
face. She raised herself as she recognised the voice, and, parting her
hair, gazes eagerly in his face. "Thou art come then," she said; "once
more come? Oh, blessings on thee for it. I have wished for thee; dreamt
of thee; called for thee; and thou art come at last to set mine eye.
What happiness to look upon thy face once more--even in death! And yet,"
she said, as she held him from her, "there is danger in your being here,
I heard them whisper to each other of the plague."
"Oh, believe it not!" said Shakespeare; "there is no sign of such
disease about thee. Thou wilt live, dearest lady. Cast but from your
mind these sad thoughts, and you will yet recover."
"Not so," said Charlotte; "I feel as if I had not many moments on earth,
and yet I know I shall not harm thee, for I have beheld the story of thy
life in my troubled dreams. I have seen thee unknown, unthought of,
unhonoured in the world. And then I saw thee enshrined in such a blaze
of glory as no mortal ever before attained on earth:--the wonder of ages
to come. Thy very name alone, whispered in thy lowly home, William
Shakespeare, will make bearded men weep. Yes," she continued,
vehemently, "I beheld thy figure standing upon an eminence so high above
thy fellow-mortals, that, though all were striving to ascend towards
thee, none could come beyond the plain on which that mountain stood."
The tears fell from the youth's eyes as he buried his face upon the
coverlid of the couch, and listened to what he considered the prophetic
ravings of delirium; and then he again raised his head and gazed upon
her. There were no traces of disease to be observed in that bright form
as he did so. The subdued light of the chamber gave her the appearance
of a marble monument. In the abandonment of her grief, she had raised
herself on one arm, and her beauty seemed even more dazzling.
"'Twas beauty
Too rich for use, for earth too dear."
The livid spots, which had so alarmed the nurse and Martin, had
disappeared from her face. Her rounded shoulder and bosom were like the
sculptured alabaster--rendered yet more white and polished by the soft,
dark tresses, by which they were partially covered.
"I would have lived for thee," she said, "to have but served thee; to
have made the paltry riches I own, available to thy genius."
As she uttered this, she sank down sobbing upon the couch. Shakespeare,
in an agony of grief, tried to raise and recover her, but she sank
quickly into insensibility: and when he laid her down again upon her
pillow, as he looked upon her, he saw she was dead!
Dead! but without the ghastly appearance which the grisly tyrant stamps
upon his prey.
"Death, that had sucked the honey of her breath,
Had yet no power upon her beauty.
Beauty's ensign yet
Was crimson on her lips and in her cheeks,
And Death's pale flag was not advanced there."