"The devil!" The countryman, who had been fumbling in his breek
pockets, drew forth two hands blankly, spreading empty fingers.
"That was your neighbour, Sir: a brisk fellow, as you were clever
enough to detect, albeit unserviceably late. I wish we had made
acquaintance sooner: 'twould have given me liberty to warn you."
"It had been a Christian's merest duty."
"La, la, master! In London the sneaking of a purse is no such rarity
that a poor 'prentice pays twopence to gape at it. I paid to see the
play, Sir, and fought hard for my seat. Before my master gave over
beating me, in fear of my inches and his wife (who has a liking for
me), he taught me to husband my time. For your purse, the back of my
head had eyes enough to tell me what befalls when a lean dog finds
himself alongside a bone."
He seated himself on the bench, unstrapped a shoe, slipped two fingers
beneath his stocking, and drew forth a silver piece. "If a gentleman of
Warwickshire will be beholden to a poor apprentice of Cheapside?"
"Put it up, boy; put it up! I need not your money, good lad: but I
like the spirit of that offer, and to meet it will enlarge my promise.
A pint of sack, did I say? You shall sup with me to-night, and of
the best, or I am a Dutchman. We will go see the town together, the
roaring, gallant town. I will make you free of great company: you shall
hear the talk of gods! Lord, how a man rusts in the country!--for, I
will confess it to you, lad, the rogue hit the mark: the country is my
home."
"I cannot think how he guessed it."
"Nor I. And yet he was wrong, too: for that cannot be called home where
a man is never at his ease. I had passed your years, lad, before ever I
saw London; and ever since, when my boots have been deepest in Midland
clay, I have heard her bells summon me, clear as ever they called to
Whittington, 'London, thou art of townes _a per se_.' Nay, almost on
that first pilgrimage I came to her as a son. _Urbem quam dicunt
Romam_--I was no such clodpate as that rustic of Virgil's. I came
expecting all things, and of none did she disappoint me. Give me the
capital before all! 'Tis only there a man measures himself with men."
"And cutpurses?" the apprentice interjected.
"Good and bad, rough and smooth," the countryman assented, with a large
and catholic smile. "'Tis no question of degrees, my friend, but of
kind. I begin to think that, dwelling in London, you have not made her
acquaintance. But you shall. As a father, lad,--for I like you,--I
will open your eyes and teach your inheritance. What say you to the
Bankside, for example?"
"The Bankside--hem!--and as a father!" scoffed the youth, but his eyes
glistened. He was wise beyond his opportunities, and knew all about
the Bankside, albeit he had never walked through that quarter but in
daylight, wondering at the histories behind its house-fronts.
"As a father, I said; and evil be to him who evil thinks."
"I can tell you of one who will think evil; and that is my master. I
can tell you of another; and that will be the sheriff, when I am haled
before him."
"You said just now--or my hearing played a trick--that your mistress
had a liking for you."
"And _you_ said, 'Evil be to him that evil thinks.' She hath a double
chin, and owns to fifty-five."
"What, chins!"
"Years, years, master. Like a grandmother she dotes on me and looks
after my morals. Nathless when you talk of Bankside----" The apprentice
hesitated: in the dusk his shrewd young eyes glistened. "Say that I
risk it?" He hesitated again.
"Lads were not so cautious in my young days. I pay the shot, I tell
you--a gentleman of Warwickshire and known to the College of Arms."
"It standeth on Paul's Wharf and handy for the ferry to Bankside: but
the College closes early on Christmas Eve, and the Heralds be all at
holiday. An you think of pawning your coat-of-arms with them to raise
the wind, never say that I let you take that long way round without
warning."
"Leave the cost to me, once more!" The countryman gazed down into the
well of the theatre as if seeking an acquaintance among the figures
below. "But what are they doing? What a plague means this hammering? A
man cannot hear himself speak for it."
"'Tis the play."
"The play?"
"The true play--the play you applauded: and writ by the same Will
Shakespeare, they tell me--some share of it at least. Cometh he not, by
the way, from your part of the world?"
The countryman's eyes glistened in their turn: almost in the dusk they
appeared to shine with tears.
"Ay, I knew him, down in Warwickshire: a good lad he was, though his
mother wept over him for a wild one. Hast ever seen a hen when her
duckling takes to water? So it is with woman when, haply, she has
hatched out genius."