A year or two more, and school grew more irksome. Father fumed, and
Mother sighed and drew Will against her knee whereon lay new little
Sister Ann while little Sister Joan toddled about the floor. "Canst not
seem to care for your books at all, son?" Mother asked, brushing Will's
red brown hair out of his eyes. "Canst not see how it frets Father, who
would have his oldest son a scholar and a gentleman?"
He meant to try. But hadn't Dad himself let him off one day to tramp
at heels after him and Uncle Henry in Arden Forest? Will Shakespeare at
eleven is a sorry student.
There comes a day when he is a big boy near thirteen years old. It is a
time when the soft, hot winds of spring and the scent and the pulse of
growing things get in the blood, and set one sick panting for the woods
and the feel of the lush green underfoot and the sound of running water.
Not that Will Shakespeare can put it into words--he only knows that when
the smell of the warm, newly turned earth comes in at the schoolroom
window and the hum of a wandering bee rises above the droning of the
lesson, he lolls on the hacked and ink-stained desk and gazes out at
the white clouds flecking the blue, and all the truant blood in his
sturdy frame pulls against his promises.
Then at length comes a day when the madness is strong upon him and he
hides his books, his Cato's _Maxims_, or perchance his _Confabulationes
Pueriles_, under the garden hedge, and skirting the town, makes his way
along the river. And there, hidden among the willows and green alders
and rustling sedge, he spends the morning; and when in the heat of the
day the fish refuse to nibble, he takes his hunk of bread out of his
pocket and lies on his back among the rushes, while lazy dreams flit
across his consciousness as the light summer clouds rock mistily across
the blue.
[Illustration: "Hidden among the willows ... he spends the morning"]
And, the wandering madness still upon him, in the afternoon he skirts
about and tramps toward Shottery. It is no new thing to go to Shottery
with or without Mother for a day at the Hathaways'. There always has
been rebellion in the blood of Will Shakespeare, and there is a slender,
wayward, grown-up somebody at Shottery who understands. Ann Hathaway has
stayed often in Stratford with the Shakespeare household. Mother loves
Ann; Father teases and twits her; the young men, swains and would-be
sweethearts, swarm about her like bumblebees about the honeysuckle at
the garden gate.
And when she is there, Will himself seldom leaves her side. He has oft
been a rebellious boy, whereat Mother has sighed and Father has sworn;
but Ann, staying with them, and she alone, has laughed. She has
understood.
And there have been times when this tall brown-haired young person has
seized his hand, as if she too had moments of rebellion, and the two
have run away--away from the swains and the would-be sweethearts, the
Latin grammar and the scoldings, to wander about the river banks and the
lanes.
[Illustration: "The two have run away ... to wander about the river
banks."]
X
So this afternoon Will tramped off to Shottery. There was a
consciousness in the back of his mind of wonderful leafiness and
embowering, of vines and riotous bloom about Ann's home. He opened the
wicket and trudged up the path, and peered in at the open door. Ann,
within the doorway, saw him. She looked him in the eye, then up at the
sun yet high in the sky, and laughed. And he knew she understood
it--truancy.
[Illustration: "He ... trudged up the path and peered in at the open
door"]
Perhaps she understood more than the fact, perhaps she understood the
feeling. She threw her work aside, needle stuck therein, and clapped a
wide straw hat upon her head and taking his hand dragged him down the
path and out the gate and away--along the Evesham road.
But she lectured him nevertheless, this red-cheeked boy with the full as
yet undisciplined young mouth and the clear, warm hazel eyes.
"You tell me that I, too, throw my work down and run away? Ay, Will,
there's that hot blood within me that sweeps me out every now and then
from within tame walls and from stupid people, and makes me know it is
true, the old tale of some wild, gypsy blood brought home by a soldier
Hathaway for wife. But there is this difference, if you please, sir;
I throw down my work because I have fought my fight and conquered it, am
mistress of what I will in my household craft. Think you that I love the
molding of butter and the care of poultry, or to spin, to cut, to sew,
because I do them and do them well? It is not the thing I love, Will--it
is in the victory I find the joy. I would conquer them to feel my power.
Conquer your book, Will, stride ahead of your class, then play your fill
till they arrive abreast of you again. But a laggard, a stupid, or a
middling! And, in faith, the last is worst."
They walked along, boy and young woman, she musing, he looking up with
young ardor into her face. "You--you are so beautiful, Ann," the boy
blurted forth, "and--and--no one understands as you do."
She laid a hand on his shoulder and turned her dark eyes upon him.
Teasing eyes they could be and mocking, yet sweet, too. Ah, sweet and
tender through their laughter!
"Shall I tell you why I understand, Will Shakespeare, child?" Was she
talking altogether to the boy, or above his head--aloud--as to herself?
"I am a woman, Will, and at nineteen most such are already wife and
mother, and I am still unwed. Shall I tell you why? We are but souls
wandering and lonely in the dark, Will, other souls everywhere
around, but scarce a groping hand that ever meets or touches our
outstretched own. In all life we feel one such touch, perchance, or two.
The rest we know no more than if they were not there. My father, great,
simple, countryman's soul, I knew, Will, and Mary Shakespeare I know.
Would she might learn she could do more with John through laughter, dear
heart; but the right is ever stronger with Mary than the humor of the
thing. My father and Mary I have known. And you, you I knew when in your
rage you fell upon the maid, baby that you were at five, and beat her
with your fists because she wantonly swept your treasures--a rose
petal, a beetle wing, a pebble, a feather--into her kitchen fire. I knew
you then, for so I had been beating at fate my life long. I knew you,
Will, and, dear child, always since I have watched and understood. Rebel
if you will; be free; but to be free, forget not, is to be conqueror
over that within self first."
Will caught her hand; he whispered; his voice burned hot with a child's
jealousy.
"'Tis said you are to wed Abraham Stripling, Ann, an' that the foreign
doctor who wants to wed you, broke Abra'm's head with his pestle."
Ann Hathaway laughed; her eyes were mocking now; she backed against
the lichened trunk of a giant elm by the roadside, a young, beauteous
thing, and looked at the boy in scorn. "I to marry Abraham Stripling!
Child though you are, you know me better than that. Did I not just tell
you I am free now--free? That I have held fast to my duty, and so come
to where I might be free? Have held them at bay--family, cousins,
elders, sweethearts--until now, the rest married and gone, and the tasks
as they gave them up come to be mine, my mother needs me, and my life
may be my own--and free. For who has come to wed me? Did I not just say
I was--I am--free? A soul groping lonely in the dark? No man's hand has
reached toward mine that I, a woman and a weakling, could not shake off.
When the masterful hand, groping, seizes mine, I shall know it, and I--I
will kiss it with my lips--and--and follow after."
[Illustration: "'When the masterful hand, groping, seizes mine, I shall
know it'"]
She came back to him as one from an ecstasy. "And now, child, go on
home. It is late. And hurry or Mary will be fretting. You have had your
cake and eaten it. Now go pay for it. 'Discipline must be maintained,'
says your Welsh schoolmaster. And sure he will flog you."