Meanwhile Will plucked Hamnet now blubbering on his stool, by the
doublet. But Hamnet, turned sullen, shook him off. Perhaps he did not
know that Will and Judith had not laughed. But since Hamnet saw fit to
shake him off, Will was glad that just then, with a rush of cold air and
a sprinkling of snow upon his short coat, Dad came in. His face was
ruddy, and as he glanced laughingly around upon them all, he drew deep
breath of the spicy evergreens, so that he filled his doublet and
close-throated jerkin to their full.
"Good-even to you, neighbors," says Dad. "An' is it great wonder the boy
will run away to hie him here? The rogue kens a good thing equal to his
elders. But come, boy; your mother is even now sure you have wandered to
the river."
And Dad, with a mighty swing, shoulders Will, steadying him with a palm
under both small feet; then pauses at Mistress Snelling's questioning.
"Is it true," she inquires, "that the players are coming?"
Sandy-hued Mistress Sadler stiffens and bridles at the question. The
Sadlers, whisper says, are Puritanical, whereas there are those who
hold that John Shakespeare and his household, for all they are observant
of church matters, have still a Catholic leaning. Fond of genial John
Shakespeare as the Sadler household are, they shake their heads over
some things, and the players are one of these.
"Is it true they are coming?" repeats Mistress Snelling.
"Ay," says Dad, "an' John Shakespeare the man to be thanked for it. Come
Twelfth Day sennight, at the Guild Hall, Mistress Snelling."
"Am I to see them, Dad?" whispers small Will, his head down and an arm
tight about his father's neck as they go out the door.
"Ay, you inch," promises Dad, stooping, too, as they go under the
lintel beneath the penthouse roof, out into the frosty night. The stars
are beginning to twinkle through the dusk, and the frozen path crunches
underfoot. On each side, as they go up the street, the yards about the
houses stand bare and gaunt with leafless stalks.
"Yes," says Dad. "Ay, boy, you shall see the players from between Dad's
knees."
[Illustration: "'Ay, boy, you shall see the players'"]
And like the old familiar stories we put on the shelf, gloating the
while over the unproven treasures between the lids of the new,
straightway Gammer's tales are forgot. And above the wind, as it whips
scurries of snow around the corners, pipes Will's voice as they trudge
home. But his pipings, his catechisings, now are concerned with this
unknown world summed up in the magic term, "The Players."
V
And Dad was as good as his word. First came Christmastide, with all
Master Shakespeare's fellow burgesses to dine and the house agog with
preparation. No wonder John Shakespeare had need of money to live up to
his estate, for next came the Twelfth Night revels with the mummers and
waits to be fed and boxed at the chief bailiff's door. And Mary
Shakespeare said never a word, but did her husband's bidding cheerfully,
even gayly. She had set herself to go his way with faith in his power to
wrest success out of venture, and she was not one to take back her
word.
The week following, John Shakespeare carried his little son to see the
players.
"And was it not as I said?" Mother asked, when the two returned. "Did
not the child fall asleep in the midst of it?"
"Sleep!" laughed Dad, clapping Will, so fine in a little green velvet
coat, upon the shoulder. "He sleep! You do not know the boy. His cheeks
were like your best winter apples, an' his eyes, bless the rogue, are
shining yet. An' trotting homeward at my heels, he has scarce had breath
to run for talking of it. 'Tis in the blood, boy; your father before
you loves a good play, an' the players, too."
And Will, blowing upon his nails aching with the cold, stands squarely
with his small legs apart, and looks up at Father. "An' I shall be a
player, too, when I'm a man," says Willy Shakespeare. "I shall be a
player and wear a dagger like Herod, an' walk about an' draw it--so----"
and struts him up and down while his father laughs and claps hand to
knee and roars again, until Mistress Shakespeare tells him he it is who
spoils the child.
[Illustration: "'An' I shall be a player, too' ... says Willy
Shakespeare"]
But for Will Shakespeare the curtain had risen on a new world, a world
of giant, of hero, of story, a world of glitter, of pageant, of
scarlet and purple and gold. And now henceforth the flagstoned floor
about the chimney was a stage upon which Mother and Brother and Kitty,
the maid, at little Will's bidding, with Will himself, played a part; a
stage where Virtue, in other words Will with the parcel-gilt goblet
upside down upon his head for crown, ever triumphed over Vice, in the
person of dull Kitty, with her knitting on the stool; or where,
according to the play, in turn, Noah or Abraham or Jesus Christ walked
in Heaven, while Herod or Pilate, Cain or Judas, burned in yawning Hell.