THE OLD SETTLE.
[Illustration]
WILLIAM HENRY, far from sharing his father’s enthusiasm at any time,
was on this occasion less than ever inclined to applaud it. If Clopton
House should be found full of Shakespearean MSS., it would not afford
him half the pleasure he would have derived from a _tête-à-tête_ with
his cousin Margaret; a treat which, it seemed, was to be thrown away
upon Frank Dennis. Why didn’t Mr. Erin select _him_ to take notes for
him from the musty documents? A question the folly of which only a high
state of irritation could excuse. He knew perfectly well that his own
dexterity and promptness in copying had caused himself to be chosen for
the undesirable task, and that knowledge irritated him the more. It was
only when he could be of some material use to him, as in the present
instance, that his father took the least account of him. If he could
bring himself to steal one of those precious documents, was his bitter
reflection, and secrete it as some wretched slave secretes a diamond
in the mines of Golconda, then, perhaps, and then only, he might be
permitted to marry Margaret. For a bit of parchment with Shakespeare’s
name upon it, most certainly for a whole play in his handwriting, Mr.
Samuel Erin, it was probable, would have bartered fifty nieces, and
thrown his own soul into the bargain. Our young friend, however, was
quite aware of what a poet of a later date would have told him, that
‘an angry fancy’ is a poor ware to go to market with; so, with as good
a grace as he could, he put on his hat and accompanied Mr. Erin and his
cicerone to Clopton House, which was but a few yards down the street.
It was a good-sized mansion of great antiquity, but had fallen into
disrepair and even decay. Its present tenant, Mr. Williams, was a
farmer in apparently far from prosperous circumstances. Half of the
many chambers were in total darkness, the windows having been bricked
up to save the window tax, and the handsome old-world furniture was
everywhere becoming a prey to the moth and the worm. As a matter of
fact, however, these were not evidences of poverty. Mr. Williams had
enough and to spare of worldly goods, only of some of them he did not
think so much as other people of more cultivated taste would have done.
A Warwickshire farmer of to-day would have considered many things as
valuable in Clopton House which their unappreciative proprietor had
relegated to the cock-loft. It was to that apartment, indeed, that
Mr. Erin was led as soon as the nature of his inquiries—which he
had stated generally, and to avoid suspicion of his actual object,
to be concerning antiquities—was understood. The room was filled
with mouldering household goods of remote antiquity, chiefly of the
time of Henry VII., in whose reign the proprietor of the house, Sir
Hugh Clopton, had been Lord Mayor of London. Among other things, for
example, there was an emblazoned representation on vellum of Elizabeth,
Henry’s wife, as she lay in state in the chapel of the Tower, where she
died in child-birth.
‘You may have that if you like,’ said Mr. Williams to his visitor
carelessly. He was a fat, coarse man, but very good-natured. ‘For,
being on vellum, it is no use to light the fire with.’
‘You don’t mean to say you light your fire with anything I see here?’
gasped Mr. Erin.
‘Well, no, there’s nothing much left of that sort of rubbish; we made a
clean sweep of it all about a fortnight since.’
‘There were no old MSS., I hope?’
‘MSS.! Heaps on ’em. They came from New Place at the time of the fire,
you see, though Heaven knows why any one should have thought them worth
saving. They were all piled in that little room yonder, and as I wanted
a place for some young partridges as I am bringing up, I burnt the
whole lot of ‘em.’
‘You looked at them first, of course, to make sure that there was
nothing of consequence?’
‘Well, of course I did. I hope Dick Williams ain’t such a fool as to
burn law documents. No, they were mostly poetry and that kind of stuff.’
‘But did you make certain about the handwriting? Else, my good sir, it
might have been that of Shakespeare himself.’
‘Shakespeare! Well, what of him? Why, there was bundles and bundles
with his name wrote upon them. It was in this very fireplace I made a
regular bonfire of them.’
There was a solitary chair in the little chamber, set apart for the
partridges, into which Mr. Samuel Erin dropped, as though he had been
a partridge himself, shot by a sportsman.
‘You—made—a—bonfire—of—Shakespeare’s—poems!’ he said, ejaculating
the words very slowly and dejectedly, like minute guns. ‘May Heaven
have mercy upon your miserable soul!’
‘I _say_,’ cried Mr. Williams, turning very red, ‘what the deuce do you
mean by talking to me as if I was left for execution? What have I done?
I’ve robbed nobody.’
‘You have robbed everybody—the whole world!’ exclaimed Mr. Erin
excitedly. ‘In burning those papers you burnt the most precious things
on earth. A bonfire, you call it! Nero, who fiddled while Rome was
burning, was guiltless compared to you. You are a disgrace to humanity.
Shakespeare had you in his eye, sir, when he spoke of “a marble-hearted
fiend.”’
Mr. Samuel Erin had his favourite bard by heart, and was consequently
in no want of ‘base comparisons,’ but he stopped a moment for want
of breath. Annoyance and indignation had had the same effect upon
Mr. Williams. He had never been ‘bully-ragged’ in his own house for
‘nothing’—except by his wife—before. Purple and speechless, he
regarded his antagonist with protruding eyes, a human Etna on the verge
of eruption.
Mr. John Jervis knew his man. Up to this point he had taken no part
in the controversy; but he now seized Mr. Erin by the arm, and led
him rapidly downstairs. Their last few steps were accomplished with
dangerous velocity, for a flying body struck both of them violently on
the back. This was William Henry, who, unable to escape the wild rush
of the bull, had described a parabola in the air.
‘If there’s law in England, you shall smart for this,’ roared the
infuriated animal over the banisters.
‘Perhaps I ought to have told you that Mr. Williams was of a hasty
disposition,’ observed Mr. Jervis apologetically, when they found
themselves in the street.
‘Hasty!’ exclaimed Mr. Erin, whose mind was much too occupied with
sacrilege to concern himself with assault; ‘a more thoughtless and
precipitate idiot never breathed. The idea of his having burnt those
precious papers! I suppose, after what has happened, it would be
useless to inquire just now whether any scrap of them has escaped the
flames; otherwise my son can go back—— ‘
‘I am sure that wouldn’t do,’ interposed Mr. Jervis confidently.
William Henry breathed a sigh of relief. The impressions of
Stratford-on-Avon seemed to him indelible; they had left on him such
‘local colouring’ as time itself, he felt, could hardly remove.
Fortunately for his _amour propre_, not a word was said by his father
of their reception at Clopton House. His whole mind was monopolised by
the literary disappointment. The inconvenience that had happened to his
son did not weigh with him a feather.
The whole party now proceeded to Mr. Jervis’s establishment, where the
remains of the famous mulberry tree were kept in stock. Mr. Erin was
haunted by the notion that some Shakespearean fanatic might step in and
buy the whole of it before he could secure some mementoes, whereas the
birthplace in Henley Street could ‘wait;’ an idea at which, for the
life of him, the proprietor of the sacred timber could not restrain a
dry smile. It was the general opinion that enough tobacco stoppers,
busts, and wafer seals had already been sold to account for a whole
grove of mulberry trees. Mr. Erin was very energetic with his new
acquaintance on the road, about precautions against fire (insurance
against it was out of the question, of course), but when he had
possessed himself of what he wanted, and the matter was again referred
to as they came away, it was noticeable that he had not another word to
say upon the side of prudence.
‘He declaimed against Mr. Williams’ rashness,’ whispered William Henry
to Margaret; ‘but my belief is that he would now set fire to that
timber yard without a scruple in order to render his purchases unique.’
Maggie held up her finger reprovingly, but her laughing eyes belied the
gesture.
Both these young people, indeed, had far too keen a sense of fun to be
enthusiasts.
To Mr. Hart the butcher (who at that time occupied the house in Henley
Street), as an indirect descendant of the immortal bard, through his
sister, Mr. Erin paid a deference that was almost servile. He examined
his lineaments, in the hopes of detecting a likeness to the Chandos
portrait, with a particularity that much abashed the object of his
scrutiny, and even tried to get him to accompany him to the church,
that he might compare his features with those of the bust of the bard
in the chancel.
But it was in the presence of the bust itself that Mr. Erin exhibited
himself in the most characteristic fashion. Standing on what was to
him more hallowed ground than any blessed by priests, and within a few
feet of the ashes of his idol, he was nevertheless unable to restrain
his indignation against the commentator Malone, through whose influence
the coloured bust had recently been painted white. Instead of bursting
into Shakespearean quotation, as it was his wont to do on much less
provocation, he repeated with malicious gusto the epigram to which the
act of vandalism in question had given birth:—
Stranger, to whom this monument is shown,
Invoke the poet’s curses on Malone,
Whose meddling zeal his barbarous taste displays,
And daubed his tombstone as he marred his plays.
His rage, indeed, so rose at the spectacle, that for the present he
protested that he found himself unable to pursue his investigations
within the sacred edifice, and proposed that the party should start
forthwith to visit Anne Hathaway’s cottage at Shottery.
There was at present no more need for Mr. Jervis’s services, so that
gentleman was left behind. Mr. Erin and Frank Dennis led the way by
the footpath across the fields that had been pointed out to them,
and William Henry and Margaret followed. It was a lovely afternoon;
the trees and grass, upon which a slight shower had recently fallen,
emitted a fragrance inexpressibly fresh. All was quiet save for the
song of the birds, who were giving thanks for the sunshine.
‘How different this is from Norfolk Street!’ murmured Margaret.
‘It is the same to me,’ answered her companion in a low tone, ‘because
all that makes life dear to me is where you are. When you are not
there, Margaret, I have no home.’
‘You should not talk of your home in that way,’ returned she
reprovingly.
‘Yet you know it is the truth, Margaret; that there is no happiness for
me under Mr. Erin’s roof, and that my very presence there is unwelcome
to him.’
‘I wish you would not call your father Mr. Erin,’ she exclaimed
reproachfully.
‘Did you not know, then, that he was not my father?’
‘What?’ In her extreme surprise she spoke in so loud a key that it
attracted the attention of the pair before them. Mr. Erin looked back
with a smile. ‘Shakespeare must have taken this walk a thousand times,
Maggie,’ he observed.
She nodded and made some suitable reply, but for the moment she was
thinking of things nearer home. She now remembered that she had heard
something to the disadvantage of Mr. Erin’s deceased wife, one of those
unpleasant remarks concerning some one connected with her which a
modest girl hears by accident, and endeavours to forget. Until Mr. Erin
had become a widower Margaret had never been permitted by her mother
to visit Norfolk Street. Mrs. Erin had been a widow—a Mrs. Irwyn—but
she had not become Mr. Erin’s wife at first, because her husband had
been alive. It was probable, then, that what William Henry had said was
true; he was Mrs. Erin’s son, but not Mr. Erin’s, though he passed as
such. This was doubtless the reason why her uncle and he were on such
distant terms with one another, and why he never called him father.
On the other hand, it was no reason why her uncle should be so harsh
with the young man, and treat him with such scant consideration. Some
women would have despised the lad for the misfortune of his birth, but
Margaret was incapable of an injustice; her knowledge of his unhappy
position served to draw him closer to her than before.
By the blush that, in spite of her efforts to repress it, spread
over her face, William Henry understood that she gave credit to his
statement, and by the tones of her voice he felt that it had done
him no injury in her eyes. It was a matter, however, which, though
necessary to be made plain, could not be discussed.
‘What your uncle says is very true, Maggie,’ he quietly remarked. ‘This
must have been Shakespeare’s favourite walk, for love never goes by the
high road when it can take the footpath. The smell of that bean-field,
the odour of the hay of that very meadow, may have come to his nostrils
as it comes to ours. His heart as he drew nigh to yonder village must
have beat as mine beats, because he knew his love was near him.’
‘There is the cottage,’ cried Mr. Erin excitedly, pointing in front of
him, and addressing his niece. ‘Is it not picturesque, with its old
timbers and its mossy roof?’
‘It will make an excellent illustration for your book,’ observed Frank
Dennis the practical.
‘It has been illustrated already pretty often,’ returned the other
drily, ‘or we should not recognise it so easily.’
‘Let us hope it’s the right one,’ muttered William Henry, ‘for it will
be poor I who will have to suffer for it if it is not.’
Fortunately, however, there was no mistake. They stepped across the
little brook, and stood in the garden with its well and its old-world
flowers. Before them was the orchard ‘for whispering lovers made,’
and on the right the low vine-clad cottage with the settle, or
courting-seat, at its door.
Here Shakespeare came to win and woo his wife; whatever doubt may
be thrown on his connection with any other dwelling, that much is
certain. On the threshold of the cottage Mr. Erin took off his hat,
not from courtesy, for he was not overburdened with politeness, but
from the same reverence with which he had doffed it at the church.
He entered without noticing whether he was followed by the others or
not. A descendant of Anne Hathaway’s, though not of her name, received
him; fit priest for such a shrine. That he had not read a line of
Shakespeare in no way detracted from his sacred character. Frank
Dennis, himself not a little moved, went in likewise. As Margaret was
following him, William Henry gently laid his hand upon her wrist and
led her to the settle, which was very ancient and worm-eaten.
‘Sit here a moment, Maggie; this is the very seat, as Mr. Jervis tells
me, on which Shakespeare sat with her who became his wife. Here, on
some summer afternoon like this, perhaps, he told her of his love.’
Margaret trembled, but sat down.
‘It is amazing to think of it,’ she said; ‘he must have looked on those
same trees, and on this very well.’
‘But he did not look at _them_, Maggie,’ said the young man tenderly;
‘he looked at the face beside him, as I am looking now, and I will
wager that it was not so fair a face.’
‘What nonsense you talk, Willie! Why do you not give yourself up as
your—as Mr. Erin does—to the associations of the place? They are so
interesting.’
‘It’s just what I am doing, dear Maggie. It was here they interchanged
their vows; a different pair, indeed, though not altogether so
superior, since to my mind you excel Anne Hathaway as much as I fall
short of her marvellous bridegroom. That I am no Shakespeare is very
true; yet it seems to me, Maggie, that when I say, “I love you,” even
he could have said nothing more true and deep. I love you, I love you,
I love you—do you hear me?’ continued the young man passionately.
‘You frighten me, Willie,’ answered Maggie in trembling tones. ‘And
then it is so foolish, since you know, that even if I said—what you
would have me say—it could be of no use.’
‘But you think it, you _think_ it? That is all I ask,’ urged the
other earnestly. ‘If matters were not as they are; if I got Mr.
Erin’s consent; if I had sufficient means to offer you a home—not
indeed worthy of you, for then it must needs be a palace—but comfort,
competence, you would not say “Nay?” Dearest Maggie, my own dear
darling Maggie, give me hope. “The miserable,” as Shakespeare tells us,
“have no other medicine:” and I am very, very miserable; give me hope,
the light of hope.’
‘It would be a will-of-the-wisp, Willie.’
‘No matter; I would bless it if it led me to my grave. If I had it,
I could work, I could win fortune, even fame perhaps. You doubt it?
Try me, try me!’ he continued vehemently, ‘and if after some time,
a little, little time, no harvest comes of it, and my brain proves
barren, why, then I will confess myself a dreamer: only in the meantime
be mine in spirit; do not promise yourself to another; let us say a
year; well, then, six months; you can surely wait six months for me,
Maggie?’
‘It would be six months of delusion, Willie.’
‘Let it be so; a fool’s paradise, but still for me a paradise. I have
not had so many happy hours that fate should grudge me these. I know
I am asking a strange thing; still I am not like those selfish lovers
who, being in the same pitiful case with me as to means, exact, like
dogs in the manger, vows of eternal fidelity from those whom they will,
in all probability, be never in a position to wed. I ask you not for
your heart, Maggie, but for the loan of it; for six months’ grace,
probation. If I fail to show myself worthy of you—if I fail to make
a name—or rather to show the promise of making it within that time,
then I return the loan. I do not say, as was doubtless said by him who
sat here before me, “Be my wife!” I only say, “For six months to come,
betroth yourself to no other man.” Come, Maggie, Frank Dennis is not so
very pressing.’
It was a dangerous card to play, this mention of his rival’s name, but
it won the game. Dennis was as true as steel, but through a modest
mistrust of his own merits—a thing that did not trouble William
Henry—he was a backward lover. He had had opportunities of declaring
himself which he had neglected, thinking of himself too lowlily, or
that the time was not yet ripe; or preferring the hope that lies in
doubt, to the despair that is begotten of denial; and this, I think,
had a little piqued the girl. She liked him well enough, well enough
even to marry him; but she liked William Henry better, and other
things being equal, would have preferred him for a husband. They were
not equal, but it was possible—just possible, for the moment she had
caught from her reputed cousin some of that confidence he felt in his
own powers—that they might be made so. At all events, six months was
not a space to ‘delve the parallels in beauty’s brow;’ and then it was
so hard to deny him.
‘You shall have your chance, Willie,’ she murmured, ‘though, as I have
warned you, it is a very poor one.’
He drew her nearer to him, despite some pretence of resistance, and
would have touched her cheek with his lips, when the cottage door was
suddenly thrown open behind them, and Mr. Erin appeared with an old
chair in his hands, which he brandished like a quarter-staff above his
head. He looked so flushed and excited that William Henry thought his
audacious proposal had been overheard, and that he was about to be
separated from his Margaret for ever by a violent death.
‘It is mine! It is mine!’ cried the antiquary triumphantly. ‘I have
bought Anne Hathaway’s chair.’