"In the name of----" stammered Nashe, as he listened, Burbage all the
while clutching his arm.
"He dropped from the top gallery, I tell you--clean into the pit from
the top gallery--and he weighs eighteen stone if an ounce. 'Your
servant, Sir, and of all the Muses,' he says, picking himself up;
and with that takes the hammer from my hand and plays Pyrrhus in
Troy--Pyrrhus with all the ravening Danai behind him: for those hired
scoundrels of mine took fire, and started ripping out the bowels of the
poor old theatre as though it had been the Fleet and lodged all their
cronies within! It went down before my eyes like a sand-castle before
the tide. Within three hours they had wiped the earth of it. The Lord
be praised that Philip Gosson had ne'er such an arm, nor could command
such! Oh, but he's a portent! Troy's horse and Bankes's bay gelding
together are a fool to him: he would harness them as Samson did the
little foxes, and fire brushwood under their tails...."
"Of a certainty you are drunk, Dick."
"Drunk? I?" Burbage gripped the other's thin arm hysterically. "If you
want to see a man drunk come to the gate. Nay, then, stay where you
are: for there's no escaping him."
Nor was there. Between them and the wagoners' lanterns at the gate a
huge shadow thrust itself, the owner of it rolling like a ship in a
sea-way, while he yet recited--
"_Strong be thy wallis that about thee standis_,
(meaning the Clink, my son),
_Wise be the people that within thee dwellis_,
(which you may take for the inhabitants thereof),
_Fresh is thy ryver with his lusty strandis,
Blith be thy chirches, wele sowning be thy bellis._"
"Well sounding is my belly, master, any way," put in a high, thin
voice; "and it calls on a gentleman of Warwickshire to redeem his
promise."
"He shall, he shall, lad--in the fullness of time: 'but before dining
ring at the bell,' says the proverb. Grope, lad, feel along the
gate-posts if this yard, this courtlage, this base-court, hath any such
thing as bell or knocker.
_And when they came to mery Carleile
All in the mornyng tyde-a,
They found the gates shut them until
About on every syde-a._
_Then Adam Bell bete on the gates
With strokes great and stronge-a_
Step warely, lad. Plague of this forest! Have we brought timber to
Sherwood?
_With strokes great and stronge-a
The porter marveiled who was thereat,
And to the gates he thronge-a._
_They called the porter to counsell,
And wrange his necke in two-a,
And caste him in a depe dungeon,
And took hys keys hym fro-a._
Within! You rascal, there, with the lantern!... Eh? but these be two
gentlemen, it appears? I cry your mercy, Sirs."
"For calling us rascals?" Nashe stepped forward. "'T hath been done to
me before now, in print, upon as good evidence; and to my friend here
by Act of Parliament."
"But seeing you with a common stable-lantern----"
"Yet Diogenes was a gentleman. Put it that, like him, I am searching
for an honest man."
"Then we are well met. I' faith we are very well met," responded the
countryman, recognising Burbage's grave face and plum-coloured doublet.
"Or, as one might better say, well overtaken," said Burbage.
"Marry, and with a suit. I have some acquaintance, Sir, with members
of your honourable calling, as in detail and at large I could prove to
you. Either I have made poor use of it or I guess aright, as I guess
with confidence, that after the triumph will come the speech-making,
and the supper's already bespoken."
"At Nance Witwold's, by the corner of Paris Garden, Sir, where you
shall be welcome."
"I thank you, Sir. But my suit is rather for this young friend of
mine, to whom I have pledged my word."
"He shall be welcome, too."
"He tells me, Sir, that you are Richard Burbage. I knew your father
well, Sir--an honest Warwickshire man: he condescended to my roof and
tasted my poor hospitality many a time; and belike you, too, Sir, being
then a child, may have done the same: for I talk of prosperous days
long since past--nay, so long since that 'twould be a wonder indeed
had you remembered me. The more pleasure it gives me, Sir, to find
James Burbage's sappy virtues flourishing in the young wood, and by the
branch be reminded of the noble stock."
"The happier am I, Sir, to have given you welcome or ever I heard your
claim."
"Faith!" said the apprentice to himself, "compliments begin to fly
when gentlefolks meet." But he had not bargained to sup in this high
company, and the prospect thrilled him with delicious terror. He
glanced nervously across the yard, where some one was approaching with
another lantern.
"My claim?" the countryman answered Burbage. "You have heard but a part
of it as yet. Nay, you have heard none of it, since I use not past
hospitalities with old friends to claim a return from their children.
My claim, Sir, is a livelier one----"
"Tom Nashe! Tom Nashe!" called a voice, clear and strong and masculine,
from the darkness behind the advancing lantern.
"Anon, anon, Sir," quoted Nashe, swinging his own lantern about and
mimicking.
"Don't tell me there be yet more wagons arrived?" asked the voice.
"Six, lad--six, as I hope for mercy: and outside the gate at this
moment."
"There they must tarry, then, till our fellows take breath to unload
'em. But--six? How is it managed, think you? Has Dick Burbage called
out the train-bands to help him? Why, hullo, Dick! What means----"
The newcomer's eyes, round with wonder as they rested a moment on
Burbage, grew rounder yet as they travelled past him to the countryman.
"Father?" he stammered, incredulous.
"Good evening, Will! Give ye good evening, my son! Set down that
lantern and embrace me, like a good boy: a good boy, albeit a man of
fame. Didst not see me, then, in the theatre this afternoon? Yet was I
to the fore there, methinks, and proud to be called John Shakespeare."
"Nay, I was not there; having other fish to fry."
"Shouldst have heard the applause, lad; it warmed your old father's
heart. Yet 'twas no more than the play deserved. A very neat, pretty
drollery--upon my faith, no man's son could have written a neater!"
"But what hath fetched you to London?"
"Business, business: a touch, too, maybe, of the old homesickness: but
business first. Dick Quiney----But pass me the lantern, my son, that I
may take a look at thee. Ay, thou hast sobered, thou hast solidified:
thy beard hath ta'en the right citizen's cut--'twould ha' been a
cordial to thy poor mother to see thee wear so staid a beard. Rest her
soul! There's nothing like property for filling out a man's frame,
firming his eye, his frame, bearing, footstep. Talking of property,
I have been none so idle a steward for thee. New Place I have made
habitable--the house at least; patched up the roof, taken down and
rebuilt the west chimney that was overleaning the road, repaired the
launders, enlarged the parlour-window, run out the kitchen passage to a
new back-entrance. The garden I cropped with peas this summer, and have
set lettuce and winter-kale between the young apple-trees, whereof the
whole are doing well, and the mulberry likewise I look for to thrive.
Well, as I was saying, Dick Quiney----"
"--Is in trouble again, you need not tell."
"None so bad but it could be mended by the thirty pounds whereof I
wrote. Mytton will be security with him, now that Bushell draws back.
He offers better than those few acres at Shottery you dealt upon in
January."
"Land is land."
"And ale is ale: you may take up a mortgage on the brewhouse. Hast ever
heard, Mr. Burbage"--John Shakespeare swung about--"of a proverb we
have down in our Warwickshire? It goes--
_Who buys land buys stones,
Who buys meat buys bones,
Who buys eggs buys shells,
But who buys ale buys nothing else._
And that sets me in mind, Will, that these friends of yours have bidden
me to supper: and their throats will be dry an we keep 'em gaping at
our country discourse. Here come I with Thespis, riding on a wagon:
but where tarries the vintage feast? Where be the spigots? Where be
the roasted geese, capons, sucking-pigs? Where the hogs-puddings, the
trifles, the custards, the frumenties? Where the minstrels? Where the
dancing girls? I have in these three hours swallowed as many pecks
of dust. I am for the bucket before the manger and for good talk
after both--high, brave translunary talk with wine in the veins of
it--Hippocras with hippocrene: with music too--some little kickshaw
whatnots of the theorbo or viol da gamba pleasantly thrown in for
interludes. 'Tis a fog-pated land I come from, with a pestilent rheumy
drip from the trees and the country scarce recovered from last year's
dearth----"
"Dick Quiney should have made the better prices for that dearth," put
in his son, knitting his great brow thoughtfully. "With wheat at fifty
shillings, and oats----"
"The malt, lad, the malt! His brewhouse swallowed malt at
twenty-eight or nine which a short two years before had cost him
twelve-and-threepence the quarter. A year of dearth, I say. It took
poor Dick at unawares. But give him time: he will pull round. Sure, we
be slow in the country, but you have some in this town that will beat
us. How many years, lad, have I been battering the doors of Heralds'
College for that grant of arms, promised ere my beard was grey and
yours fully grown?"
"Malt at twenty-eight, you say?"
"Last year, lad--a year of dearth. Call it a good twenty in these
bettering times, and wheat anything under forty-five shillings."
"Well, we will talk it over." His son seemed to come out of a brown
study. "We will talk it over," he repeated briskly, and added, "How?
The chimney overleaning the road? 'Twas a stout enough chimney, as I
remember, and might have lasted another twenty years. Where did you
draw the bricks?"
Nashe glanced at his friend with a puzzled smile. Burbage--better used,
no doubt, to the businesslike ways of authors--betrayed no surprise.
The apprentice stared, scarcely believing his ears. Was this the talk
of Shakespeare? Nay, rather the talk of Justice Shallow himself--"How a
good yoke of bullocks at Stamford Fair?" "How a score of ewes now?"
A heavy tread approached from the gateway.
"Are we to bide here all night, and on Christmas morn, too?" a gruff
voice demanded. "Unpack, and pay us our wage, or we tip the whole load
of it into Thames." Here the wagoner's shin encountered in the darkness
with a plank, and he cursed violently.
"Go you back to your horses, my friend," answered Burbage. "The
unloading shall begin anon. As for your wage, your master will tell you
I settled it at the time I bargained for his wagons--ay, and paid. I
hold his receipt."
"For tenpence a man--mowers' wages," growled the wagoner.
"I asked him his price and he fixed it. 'Tis the current rate, I
understand, and a trifle over."
"Depends on the job. I've been talkin' with my mates, and we don't like
it. We're decent labouring men, and shifting a lot of play-actors'
baggage don't come in our day's work. I'd as lief wash dirty linen
for my part. Therefore," the fellow wound up lucidly, "you'll make it
twelvepence a head, master. We don't take a groat less."
"I see," said Burbage blandly: "twopence for salving your conscience,
hey? And so, being a decent man, you don't stomach players?"
"No, nor the Bankside at this hour o' night. I live clean, I tell you."
"'Tis a godless neighbourhood and a violent." Burbage drew a silver
whistle from his doublet and eyed it. "Listen a moment, master wagoner,
and tell me what you hear."
"I hear music o' sorts. No Christmas carols, I warrant."
"Aught else?"
"Ay: a sound like a noise of dogs baying over yonder."
"Right again: it comes from the kennels by the Bear-Pit. Have you a
wish, my friend, to make nearer acquaintance with these dogs? No? With
the bears, then? Say the word, and inside of a minute I can whistle up
your two-pennyworth."
The wagoner with a dropping jaw stared from one to another of the ring
of faces in the lantern-light. They were quiet, determined. Only the
apprentice stood with ears pricked, as it were, and shivered at the
distant baying.
"No offence, Sir; I meant no offence, you'll understand," the wagoner
stammered.
"Nay, call your mates, man!" spoke up William Shakespeare, sudden
and sharp, and with a scornful ring in his voice which caused our
apprentice to jump. "Call them in and let us hear you expound Master
Burbage's proposal. I am curious to see how they treat you--having an
opinion of my own on crowds and their leaders."
But the wagoner had swung about surlily on his heel.
"I'll not risk disputing it," he growled. "'Tis your own dung-hill, and
I must e'en take your word that 'tis worse than e'er a man thought. But
one thing I'll not take back. You're a muck of play-actors, and a man
that touches ye should charge for his washing. Gr-r!" he spat--"ye're
worse than Patty Ward's sow, and _she_ was no lavender!"