THE RETURN.
Our readers must now again look upon the town of Stratford,
whilst the bright mid-day sun shines upon its roof and
chimneys, mid glitters like innumerable diamonds upon its
multitudinous windows.
With one of those sudden changes so common to our climate, the damp
weather has cleared up, and turned to frost. The air is light and
cheerful, and a hoary tinge is given to all around.
How sweetly rural are the quiet old towns of England, as the approaching
winter begins to give us that cozy anticipation of the comforts and
fire-side enjoyments to come with the snow and the bracing blast.
In Elizabeth's day, when the season was fraught with games and revels,
each house in the quaint-looking street seemed to promise its
hospitality. The citizens' wives, as they bustled through the street,
appeared to experience this feeling. The native burghers seemed to
accost each other with a more cordial greeting. The change, even in the
open country, albeit it is sterile, and the "one red leaf" is all that
dances on the tall tree, is so seasonable, that it is grateful. The
human mortals love the coming winter. Its change seems to freshen up all
around. Even the old crone, shivering in the ingle neuk, looks with a
renewed feeling of pleasure upon the frosted pane, and listens to the
sound of the wind without with a kind of enjoyable feeling as she turns
her eye again upon the bright hearth-log. Its very crackle seems to
chirp of Christmas festivities--"to tell of youthful prime," and those
departed days of lusty bachelorship and maiden coyness, with all the
romps and revels of the time. And then, with the changeful current of
thought, as remembrance dwells upon the many departed, amidst the many
known,--then comes the more sombre picture, the superstitions of the old
age, the sheeted ghost, the evil genius, the witch, and the thrice-told
tale of Gramarie--those cherished remembrances of the hallowed period
"Wherein the Saviour's birth was celebrated."
Stratford, so picturesque in its old-world look, so peculiarly English,
is just now putting on its winter garb.
A couple of days subsequent to that on which Captain Fluellyn arrived at
Clopton, whilst the inhabitants progressed the streets, they seemed once
more filled with the import of recent news. Rumour, in the absence of
all assured information, with all its exaggeration of circumstance, was
afloat amongst them. The great difficulty amidst the variety of
information was to gain the real story which had arrived. Grasp, who
had suddenly returned, had brought it; but then Grasp, who was hardly to
be believed on his oath, had shut himself up the moment he arrived, and
would see no one. Certain, however, it was (for everybody said it) that
another desperate attempt had been made upon the life of the Queen. By
some it was reported she had been stabbed; by others that she had been
shot. Master Doubletongue went so far as to say that she was both dead
and buried! But as such surmise amounted to treason, he was ordered by
the head-bailiff to go about and deny all he had asserted, the drummer
of the town being sent round with him, in order that he might proclaim
himself a liar at every corner.
Those of our readers who have an eye for the picturesque can, we dare
say, imagine the High Street of Stratford-upon-Avon at this season of
the year, peopled thus with inhabitants clad in their quaint costume,
their short cloaks, doublets, and high-crowned hats. Those respectable,
dignified, and grave-looking men, progressing with an assured and
stately step, cane in hand, not hurrying about, as at the present day,
but greeting each other with something of ceremony in their deportment.
Many of them stand in groups of three or four and discuss the news,
whilst the good wives of the town, albeit they are few in number, for it
was not considered over seemly for the sober sort of females to be much
upon the tramp, are also to be observed in their wide-brimmed hats,
mufflers and kirtles, passing and repassing along the highway.
The street altogether has, with the beetling stories on either hand, the
clear frosty air, and the costumed figures, with here and there a red
cloak amongst other sad-coloured suits, altogether the appearance of a
winter view in an old Dutch painting.
The news is of import, and all seem impressed with it--for, in
Elizabeth's day, so much importance was attached to the life of the
Queen by her Protestant subjects, that man looked grave and anxious at
such a rumour as the present. Public safety and the prosperity of the
nation seemed to hang upon her life.
Grasp, albeit he was slightly regarded in the town, was called on
several times, but no one could gain admittance at Grasp's. He seemed to
have rammed up his doors against the world. He was sick, engaged, not
within, not to be molested. Meanwhile, as the day passed and the evening
approached, a light and gentle fall of snow seemed to herald the coming
winter weather. And as light thickened, the sharp and rapid sound of an
approaching horseman is heard at a distance on the Warwick road. Let us
listen to the sound, as the sharp spur of that rider urges on his steed;
now from a rapid trot to a gallop, and then again apparently he pulls up
to a slower pace.
'Tis sweet to hear, in the still evening, the sound of hoofs on the hard
road, mellowed by distance, now clattering along, loud and sharp, and
now again so indistinct as to be almost lost to the ear.
One or two of the townsfolk have walked forth to meet that traveller and
inquire the news, and at length he nears the suburb, spurs on his steed,
and enters the inn; an event in the annals of that place which, could
the inhabitants have appreciated it, would have doubtless been
sufficiently noted.
He came comparatively unknown amongst them, that horseman, unannounced
even to his own family. He thought not of his own importance, he knew it
not, yet not a building, could it have spoken and felt, but would, we
think, have uttered a note of joy. The very bells of the old tower
should have rung out a joyous peal, and the hollow steeple of the guild
of the Holy Cross have cracked with the reverberation of the sound.
Nay, we can almost wonder that the inhabitants did not, one and all, go
forth to greet the rider in the high-crowned hat, long boots, ample
cloak, and the long petronels in his girdle, for, take him for all in
all, Stratford will never look upon his like again. His capable eye
glanced down the High Street, as he rode; a tear glistened on his cheek
as he beheld its well-known aspect, and then he spurred his steed, and
rode up Henley Street. A few moments more and he was in the midst of his
relatives. William Shakespeare had returned to Stratford-upon-Avon.