But baby years pass. When Will Shakespeare is six, he hears that he is
to go to school. But not to nod over a hornbook at the petty school--not
John Shakespeare's son! Little Will Shakespeare is entered at King's New
College, which is a grammar-school.
But, dear me! Dear me! It was a dreary place and irksome. At first small
Will sat among his kind awed. When Schoolmaster breathed Will breathed,
but when Schoolmaster glanced frowningly up from under overhanging brows
like penthouse roofs, then the heart of Will Shakespeare quaked within
him.
But that was while he was six. At seven, when the elements of Latin
grammar confronted him, Will had already found grammar-school an
excellent place to plead aching tooth or heavy head to stay away from.
At eight, a dreary traveling for him to cover did his "_Sententiae
Pueriles_" prove, and idle paths more pleasing.
At nine, he had learned to know many things not listed at
grammar-school. For instance, he knew one Bardolph of the brazen, fiery
nose, the tapster at the tavern. It was Bardolph who drew him out from
under the knee and belaboring fists of one Thomas Chettle, another
grammar-school boy, who had him down, behind High Cross in the Rother
Market.
[Illustration: "For instance, he knew one Bardolph ... the tapster at
the tavern"]
"In the devil's name," said Bardolph, setting him on his feet, "with
your nose all gore an' never an eye you can open--what do you mean, boy,
to be letting the like of _that_ come over you?" "That" meant Thomas
Chettle, his fists squared, and as red as any fighting turkey, held off
at arm's-length by Bardolph.
"Come over me!" cries Will, with a rush at Thomas, head down, for all
his being held off by Bardolph's other hand. "Who says he has come over
me?"
Now the matter stood thus. The day before, Will Shakespeare had
followed a company of strolling mountebanks about town instead of going
to school. And Thomas Chettle had told Schoolmaster, and he had told
Father. When Will reached home the evening before, Dad was telling as
much to Mother and blaming her for it. "An' Chettle's lad admits Will
had ever rather see the swords an' hear a drum than look upon his
lessons----"
This Father was saying as Will sidled in. Will heard him say it. And so
Thomas Chettle had to answer for it.
"Come over me!" says Will to Bardolph who is holding him off and
contemplating him, a battered wreck. "Come over me!" spitting blood and
drawing a sleeve across his gory countenance, "I'd like to see him do
it!" Will Shakespeare was not one to know when he was beaten.