GRIEF, consternation, horror surged through that room. For the moment,
the shock of the announcement was more than they could bear. It was as
if each man present had been stunned by a blow. But the calm was for
the moment only. In the next came a babel of tongues framing a score of
incoherent questions.
Richard Burbage replied to none of these. He stood an instant swaying,
his ashen face framed in the eerie glow of the candles. And then
without a further word he turned and passed like a ghost through the
door of the room with the same abruptness with which he had entered it.
He went headlong, stumbling and creaking, down the ricketty stairs of
the old tavern and out into the July evening.
In the street, hard by the signboard, under the shadow of the tavern
wall, two men lay in wait for the tragedian. One of these was his
fellow-player, William Kemp, the other John Heming the manager of the
Globe Theatre. These also were men of strong feelings, but they had
them under control, whereas Richard Burbage who might almost be said to
worship the ground on which the poet trod, had been carried completely
away by this direst of tragedies, which he knew not how to face.
As became good men, true friends, staunch comrades, Kemp and Heming
were fully determined not to let Burbage pass out of their sight during
the remainder of that night. But they must not show themselves in his.
Already he had resented their presence fiercely, had cursed them when
they had sought to console him, and had so far fallen from that poise
of mind and temper which at ordinary times made him a most agreeable
companion, as to threaten to do them violence, “if they would not have
the goodness to keep themselves to themselves and stand out of his
light.”
Thus William Kemp and John Heming remained well in the shadow of the
tavern wall. But when their distracted friend came out of the inn,
perhaps a little sooner than they had expected him to do so, they
proceeded to follow him at a respectful distance. Without betraying
their own presence, they contrived to keep him well in view.
Certainly there was very good ground for such solicitude. The tragedian
swayed about from side to side like a ship in a gale, now up one
deserted street, now down another. And all these dark purlieus of
the city swarmed with perils at that hour of the night. Moreover,
the ostensible condition of this pedestrian, the vagaries of whose
gait certainly resembled those of a man far gone in liquor, seemed to
cry aloud for the attentions of the vigilant cutpurse or the lurking
footpad.
With unseeing eyes, with unstable limbs, with mind insensible of its
surroundings, with steps not knowing whither they were bent, the
tragedian walked the byways of the city during the whole of that
night. Like the fate-riven figures in those soul-shaking tragedies
in whose delineation he excelled all men, he was at the mercy of an
anguish of mind that was tearing him in pieces.
This was a large and noble nature. And bitterly it was rent because
it had not been more vigilant. Richard Burbage felt himself unworthy
of the sacred duty imposed upon him by his fraternal intimacy
with the poet. He had an insight into human nature which enabled
him to understand a certain weakness that must inevitably attend
such transcendent powers as those of William Shakespeare. And this
understanding seemed to lay the charge upon him of watching over this
man who was not as other men.
To this trust Burbage felt he had not been true. Yet it was not easy
to know by what means he could have saved his friend from his terrible
pass. Times and again he had besought him to be prudent, and his
counsels had been urged with intense conviction. None realized more
clearly than Burbage that it was indeed a perilous hour for any man
to be concerned with treason. The Queen’s temper was implacable. She
who had done to death a kinswoman and a queen because her own personal
safety was held to be remotely threatened was not likely to know the
meaning of pity in the case of an humble play-actor who had mingled so
openly in the cause of a condemned traitor.
Burbage mourned the madness of his friend. Pacing the dark streets of
the city during the watches of the night in a state of mind bordering
upon frenzy, he was a man self-tormented. Yet after all, he was in
no wise to blame. No grace of his, no vigilance, indeed, no human
foresight could have averted this tragic issue.
The two comrades of the tragedian kept the swaying figure ever in view.
Wherever it went that night they followed it. Hour after hour Burbage
wandered purposeless about the city. His grief, silent and contained
though it was, was a thing dreadful to behold.
Towards midnight he came to the river. A new fear then gripped the
hearts of his comrades. Very stealthily they crept up closer behind
him. What more likely than that one in such a frame of mind should
have recourse to those dark waters which have done so much to ease
the misery of the world? Bareheaded, unsteady of gait, wild of mien,
the tragedian walked hour by hour upon the very brink of death. And
all that time his two friends watched and waited yet dared not show
themselves.
The night was oppressively hot. The summer air was charged with pent-up
forces, and while it was still dark these sought opportunity to wreak
themselves upon the thirsting earth. The moon and stars were hid; all
the heavens were a dense mass of pitch; presently came lightning and
peal upon peal of thunder. It was the prelude to a terrific storm and
the man by the verge of the river welcomed it with every fiber of his
being.
The words of _Lear_ were yet unborn. But in such a night and tempest
of the soul was to walk that figure which this unhappy man was one day
to teach the ages to pity. His head was bare and unbent to the storm;
a hurricane lashed the upturned face; he was drenched to the skin; and
yet this rage of heaven was as nought to the tumult in the mind of one
poor tragedian.
And like their friend, wholly undefended from this wild fury of the
elements, William Kemp and John Heming stood cowering a little way off
in the lee of a wall. All the long night through, in spite of darkness
and tempest, they never left him. And when at last came the dawn, and
with it some abatement of the frenzy of the heavens, they stood with
him still by the bank of the grim river.
Drenched to the skin, and utterly weary and wretched as they were, they
did not once allow Richard Burbage to pass out of their sight. Wherever
he went they must go also; to all that he did they must be a party. Yet
only in the last resort must they venture to declare themselves to him.
The slow hours passed. Richard Burbage still lingered by that river
which in one brief instant would have eased him of his pain. But at
last, just as the hour of eight was told by the churches of the city,
resolve appeared to brace and quicken the exhausted frame. A new
purpose, a new strength enfolded that unhappy figure. Burbage suddenly
started to walk briskly along the river bank in the direction of
Richmond.
Hungry, exhausted, profoundly miserable, his two comrades continued to
follow him. All night had they been waiting for some such manifestation
of design, for this was a man of powerful and resolute character. It
was now more imperative than ever that this vigilance should not relax.
They knew not what secret spring of action had moved him. And in his
present mood there was nothing of which he was not capable.
On and on he walked, briskly now and with an appearance of
ever-increasing resolve. Through fair meadows and riverside gardens
and hamlets they passed. By ten o’clock, they had left the river below
them and were ascending the steep and gloriously wooded slopes of
Richmond Hill.
Every fiber of the tragedian’s being seemed now in the thrall of his
new purpose. Not once did he tarry or look back. All unaware that he
was being so closely followed, he turned at the top of the hill into
Richmond Park.
It was a morning such as makes of earth a paradise. The air was cool,
fragrant, delicious after the great storm of the night. Long shafts of
gold light pierced the branches of the trees; the wet bracken shone
with crystals; the sky was one wide unbroken promise of a gorgeous
noon; the deer flitted in and out of the clean-washed spaces, between
low-hanging canopies of leaves. Earth was rejoicing this morning of
July in the solace and refreshment that the night had brought to her.
All was well with her now. Her fainting energies had been renewed.
And all was now well with one among her children, one poor and frail
tragedian.
The squat, rather ungainly figure, striding wide as though the boards
of the playhouse were still its theater, neither passed nor faltered in
its course. Bared head upflung, a curious rigidity in the face, there
was high purpose in every movement now.
Richard Burbage sought the broad path that led to the Queen’s palace.
And no sooner had he come to it, than he greatly increased the pace at
which he walked. Indeed, as the row of imposing turrets of the royal
demesne came into view at a turn in the road, he almost broke into a
run.
William Kemp and John Heming, so exhausted by now that they could
scarcely drag one foot after the other, suddenly awoke with a kind of
bewildered dismay to the fact that the Queen’s palace was, beyond a
doubt, the goal of their quarry. Breathlessly, they followed ever in
his wake, but in the last hundred yards or so, he had gained upon them
considerably.
Before the gate of the palace, however, Richard Burbage had to call a
halt. Certain formalities had to be observed before the halberdiers
on guard could be induced to pass a stranger through. And to their
question of who this stranger was and what was his pleasure, the two
comrades of the actor were able to come up to the gate just in time to
hear his reply.
“I am Richard Burbage, the tragedian, and I desire to see the Queen
without delay on a matter of the most urgent importance.”
Moreover, these words were spoken in that magnificently rotund and
authoritative voice that never failed to send a thrill through the
Globe Theatre.
And even now in these strange circumstances, it did not fail of its
effect. The guards of the Queen were no more than mortal men. And this
man with great eyes burning in an ashen face was more than mortal now.
He was in the thrall of a divine idea. It was not for those on a lower
plane of being to deny such an imperious instancy. Without delay,
Richard Burbage, the tragedian, was permitted to pass through the gate.
William Kemp and John Heming stood at the threshold of the Queen’s
palace to watch the tragedian pass from their view. But when they also
were asked by the sentinels at the gate who they were and what they
sought, they did not venture to proclaim either their business or
themselves.
They drew off silently a little way into the bracken, there to await
the issue. Sick at heart, overcome with despair, they flung their
completely exhausted bodies into the wet grass.