MORE MATTER FOR A MAY MORNING.
Stratford-upon-Avon, like most country towns, possessed at this period,
amongst other and worthier inhabitants, a certain amount of fragments,
who were indeed in themselves nothing, but who wished to make
themselves, as they fancied themselves, something.
Those stuck-up portions of humanity, besides being extremely chaste in
their ideas of propriety, were perhaps the most intolerant and
unforgiving Christians in the world.
Brotherly love and charity were as often and as forcible in their mouths
as real humanity was wanting in their hearts. Did a poor maiden err, and
allowed her failing to be discovered, she was to be utterly cast out,
abandoned, destroyed--no redemption allowed. Did a youth but shew the
germs of a generous spirit, and fling out never so little, he was to be
hunted down as one of the wild and wicked, irrecoverably disowned, and
driven from society. Such folks are, as we have said, always to be found
in a small community of citizens--the unwholesome impurity which
circulates in its veins and arteries, and poisons by degrees the stream
of its life.
Should any of these envious censors happen to observe one whom they
consider of mark and likelihood beyond the common herd, they endeavour
to make shipwreck of such superiority, by nipping it in the bud. They
feel conscious of their own common-place inferiority. They know
themselves in reality nothing, and they resolve to reduce, if they can,
the superiority of others to their own level, or to trample and destroy
it utterly, if possible.
"Such a commodity of warm slaves" in Stratford had for some time looked
with evil eye upon young Shakespeare. There was a superiority about him
which, as it was more observable to their envy, they could by no means
behold with quietude. They regarded him with a rankling dislike, and
received, invented, or promulgated with avidity any thing they could
gather to his disadvantage.
Our readers will perhaps think it odd, that one so young should already
have found enemies in his native town. They will, however, remember,
that "Envy always dogs merit at the heels," and that Shakespeare, as he
was no common person, was at the same time the most open, generous, and
unsuspicious of mortals--a man likely to expose himself to censure, and
care little about it either.
Back-wounding calumny, as he well knew, "the whitest virtue strikes."
With every aggravation of circumstance, therefore, the somewhat
desultory life young Shakespeare led, became canvassed by these good
citizens of Stratford.
He was noted as one of irreclaimably wild and dissolute habits--"quoted
and signed to do some deed of shame;" and through the industry of Grasp
and Doubletongue, the Charlecote exploit got wind all over the
neighbourhood.
No sooner did Grasp hear of the return of Sir Thomas Lucy from
Kenilworth, and which happened a few days after the adventure, than he
hastened over to Charlecote, and demanding audience of the stately
knight, laid all he knew before him.
Our readers will readily picture to themselves the ire of Sir Thomas on
hearing this piece of intelligence, and which, as Grasp related the
conversation he had heard whilst lying in perdue at the hostel, plainly
shewed the knight that his park had been broke, and his deer shot under
his very nose.
"Ha!" he said, as he rose from his chair, and looked forth into the
lovely chase; "and is it so? and are we bearded thus? Now, I will teach
these knaves a lesson they shall not easily forget! The _outrecuidance_
of that wild young fellow--that young Shakespeare, it shall go hard, but
I will punish. A slight touch of the whip would do much towards turning
so fiery a spirit. Ah! and what then, nothing but my parks, my woods,
and my forest-walks will suffice for the recreation of that young
springald.
"Master Grasp, I am much bounden to you for this intelligence. At once
we will proceed against the whole gang of desperadoes. Let me see your
list again. Ah! I see. And now, with regard to the Lucy Arms, we will
begin there first. No more shall that swaggering Host make mine own
property the den in which these ruffians congregate, and lay their plots
to rob and plunder me."
"Master Fillpot was soliciting a fresh lease of the Lucy Arms, was he
not, honoured Sir?" inquired Grasp.
"He was so," said Sir Thomas. "His lease expired last Midsummer, and I
was about to renew it. I will renew it with a vengeance, Master Grasp,
as you shall see anon."
"Marry and amen," said Grasp. "The Lucy Arms, grieved am I to say it,
since they are pertaining to so honourable a house, hath been for some
time a sign of disrepute in the town, a rallying point for certain
dissolute and shameless characters to assemble at."
"They shall no longer be so," said. Sir Thomas, ringing a small bell on
his table, "We will incontinently proceed there. Let the head keeper be
sought immediately," he said to the domestic, who answered the summons.
"He awaits in the court with the hawks, Sir Thomas," said the domestic.
"Order him hither," said the knight, "and inform the ladies I shall not
go to the marshes this morning. I have business at Stratford which will
employ me till after noon."
The man bowed and withdrew, and immediately afterwards the head keeper,
a tall, athletic-looking man, holding his falcon on his glove, entered
the room.
"Your fellows keep good watch, Oswald," said the knight. "During my
absence at Kenilworth, I have been again robbed; one of the best bucks
in the park has been stolen."
"I heard not of it, Sir Thomas," returned the falconer.
"So it appears," returned the knight. "Nevertheless it hath been done;
by the same token, this worthy, honest person saw the deer brought to
the kitchen of the Lucy Arms at Stratford, where it was skinned, cut up,
and actually some part of it eaten by William Shakespeare and his
companions."
"You amaze me," said the keeper; "on that night some of those I left in
charge of the park were scared by a horrible apparition, the same which
has been sometimes seen in the chase of Kenilworth, and so alarmed Roger
Watchum, the Earl's head keeper, that he took it as a warning of death,
and never joyed after. It hath grievously scared our people too, and
they are afraid to go out at night, except in couples."
"Let them quit my service in couples then," said Sir Thomas, "since they
are such cowardly hounds, and do you put a bullet through that ghost
wherever you find it. I am well served by fellows who, scared by a
shadow, run scampering about the woods, and leave the deer to the mercy
of caitiffs and common robbers the whilst."
The head keeper well knew the stern disposition of his master, he
therefore only bowed and waited further orders, whilst Sir Thomas walked
up and down the apartment for some minutes without speaking. After a
while, however, he again addressed the keeper.
"Go, sirrah," he said, "get together half a score of my out-door
serving-men with pick and crow-bar. Send them forward to the Town-end at
Stratford; and do thou and half a dozen of thy fellows, prepare to
attend _me_."
"And now, Master Grasp," he said, "we will take your's, and the
depositions of the men you have brought with you, who saw this
Shakespeare in the act of burying the buck's-hide in the orchard of the
Lucy Arms."
Meantime whilst these transactions were taking place at Charlecote, the
unconscious delinquents were again assembled at the hostel, where we
fear, it must be confessed, more mischief was being plotted against the
quieter portions of the community.
The spirit of mischief, and the love of sport, was, after all, the chief
mover of the whole party. They enjoyed those stolen pleasures, and,
indeed, doubly relished the banquets they furnished forth, from the very
circumstances of their being so procured.
On the present occasion, the presiding genius of the tavern--the jovial
Froth, with Pierce, Caliver, and Careless, were the parties assembled in
the parlour of the Lucy Arms.
'Twas the time, according to the magnificent wight Armado, "when beasts
most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which
is called supper,"--about the sixth hour.
The meal was accompanied by sauce of the best quality, hunger, and
savoured by good humour and hilarity. It consisted of a smoking haunch
from the very buck we have already heard so much controversy about, and
which was washed down by large draughts of liquor, various in kind, and
exquisite in flavour.
It would have done the reader's heart good to have beheld mine host of
the tavern, with the sleeves of his doublet tucked up, standing at the
table to carve the savoury joint, and whilst he ever and anon partook of
a morsel and pledged his guests in a bumper, waiting upon them and
uttering his quaint sayings.
William Shakespeare and Diccon Snare had promised to be of the party on
this evening, but from some cause or other which was unexplained,
neither had kept the appointment.
Meanwhile the supper was finished, the haunch devoured down to the very
bone, the napkin was removed, and the sparkling liquors in their
quaint-cut bottles and flasks being placed upon the board, the party sat
in for a carouse. They had all been over to Warwick on that day, and
pleasure and action gave a zest to the evening's entertainment and the
enjoyment of the hour; still the absence of Shakespeare and Snare made
the evening's enjoyment, after all, seem incomplete. There was a feeling
of something wanting to crown the joy of the party; for those who had
once been in the society of the delightful Will, would be likely,
without knowing the extent of their feelings at the moment, to
experience a terrible void if he disappointed them.
The assemblage, however, were not men to allow the hours to hang on
hand; and in the hope and expectation that their friends would join
them, they carried on the war in jovial style. Their jests principally
were levelled against Sir Thomas Lucy, whose rude and overbearing
keepers they were the more pleased at gaining a triumph over; inasmuch
as one or two of their own party had before been severely punished for
offences against the game laws--offences, which men of their sort looked
upon in the light of no offence at all, and rather as a sort of feather
in their caps, anything but a theft; or, if a theft, a species of
stealing which those of spirit, and ranking as gentlemen, had a right to
indulge in: for what says the old doggrel?
"Harry and I in youth long since
Did doughty deeds, but some nonsense;
We read our books, we sang our song,
We stole a deer; nor thought it wrong;
To cut a purse deserves but hanging,
To steal a deer gets merely banging."
"Ha, ha!" said the Host. "Art thou there, bullies? Why, then, confusion
to these Bohemian tartars! and we lads of mettle will still feast at
their expense. What we must hedge, we must lurch. An we are borne down
by the vile in spirit, we must resort to cozenage,--we must filch,--we
must steal,--we must coney catch,--we must cozen the dappled deer from
the fern."
"Truly thou art in the right, Host," said Froth; "but I most especially
marvel what keepeth the jovial Will to-night. He struck the buck, and
should be at the carving of the haunch. We lack him--we lack him much.
By my fay! the cup lacks flavour, whilst expectation is thus defeated.
Oh, 'tis a glorious boy! Come, lads, let us in his absence cheer our
spirits with a catch. Give us Will's own song of the horns: an we have
not himself, we'll have his verse." And the party sang,--
"1. What shall we have that kill the deer?
2. His leathern skin and horns to wear.
3. Then sing him home.
Take thou no scorn to wear the horn,
It was a crest ere thou wast born."
The chorus was trolled out again and again, the singers applauding their
own exertions vigorously, by repeated raps upon the table. Mine Host sat
with his hands clasped before him, his head keeping time with drunken
precision:
"The horn, the horn, the lusty horn,
Is not a thing to laugh to scorn."
When just at this moment the whole company were startled by an
apparition nearly as appalling in appearance as the spectre they had
themselves scared the keepers of Sir Thomas Lucy with in Charlecote, and
which indeed was neither more nor less than Sir Thomas Lucy himself.
The knight advanced a few paces into the room, accompanied by several of
his men, and stood to regard the party. Mine host was the first to catch
sight of him, and the lusty chorus he was trolling out died away in a
faint quaver, and as the rest of the company, following the direction of
his staring eyes, turned and beheld the tall knight, conscience made
cowards of them all, and, with a desperate rush, they endeavoured to get
out of the room. Two dashed into the sleeping-chamber of Froth, whence
they escaped into the orchard, whilst mine host, Caliver, and Careless,
bolted through the open window.
Following the example of these latter fugitives, Froth made also an
attempt to escape by the window, but his huge body became fixed like a
wedge, as he endeavoured to throw himself forwards upon the grass
without, and his nether man presented so fair a mark that the irate
knight pointing him out to his head keeper, the sturdy forester stepped
up, and by a most industrious application of his hunting-whip, so
stimulated the exertions of Froth, that, bellowing with pain, he at last
managed to get through the opening.
If the stately knight had been given to mirth, the sight of this swollen
porpoise, during his efforts to escape,--his huge legs kicking at his
tormentor,--his great body fast jammed,--would have furnished him with
laughter for some minutes.
Sir Thomas, however, was too irate to be so moved; he sought for proof
of the guilt of the parties in this their sanctum, and, quickly
proceeding to overhaul the lodgement of Froth, he found sufficient
evidence of their poaching propensities; cross-bows, matchlocks, and
snares of various sorts, were rummaged out and brought to light; and
even the costume of Dreary Death, and other disguises, were produced. In
fact, the query which had been often suggested by some of the more staid
neighbours of the vicinity, as to how the swash-bucklers and rollicking
blades constituting the society of the Lucy Arms, managed to live,
was brought to light. They lived by their exertions on the road
and the glade. They were squires of the night's body--Diana's
foresters--gentlemen of the shade.
No sooner was Sir Thomas fully satisfied on this point than he retired
from the interior, and, mounting his horse, ordered the men awaiting him
at the town-end to be summoned.
"Master Grasp," he said, "I have more than once given this caitiff host
notice to quit, and he hath still hung on and craved to remain my
tenant. You have seen him this day evacuate the premises of his own free
will, and I will now give my own people possession."
Thus saying, Sir Thomas ordered his men to enter the hostel, and proceed
to unroof it,[17] after which he desired them with pick and spade to
demolish and destroy as much as they could effect that night, and in the
morning to return and level the Lucy Arms with the ground. That done, he
reiterated his commands to the obsequious Grasp to proceed against the
whole party as aiders and abetters in the robbery--William Shakespeare,
in particular, as principal. To _prosecute_ and _persecute_ with the
utmost rigour of the law. After which he turned his horse, and, grave
and stately, attended by his keepers, rode off to Charlecote.
[Footnote 17: This sort of ejectment was not uncommon in Elizabeth's
reign.]