"Ay, lad?"
"Is't true thou'rt become a landowner, down in thy native shire?"
"In a small way, Tom."
"A man of estate? with coat-of-arms and all?"
"Even that too, with your leave."
"I know--I know. _Nescio qua natale solum_--those others did not
understand: but I understood. Yes, and now I understand that fifth act
of thine, which puzzled me afore, and yet had not puzzled me; but I
fancied--poor fool!--that the feeling was singular in me. 'Twas a vile
life, Will." He jerked a thumb back at Bankside.
"Ay, 'tis vile."
"My cough translates it into the past tense; but--then, or now, or
hereafter--'tis vile. Count them up, Will--the lads we have drunk with
aforetime. There was Greene, now----"
Shakespeare bent his head for tally.
"--I can see his poor corse staring up at the rafters: there on the
shoemaker's bed, with a chaplet of laurel askew on the brow. The woman
meant it kindly, poor thing!... She forgot to close his eyes, though.
With my own fingers I closed 'em, and borrowed two penny pieces of her
for weights. 'Twas the first dead flesh I had touched, and I feel it
now.... But George Peele was worse, ten times worse. I forget if you
saw him?"
Again Shakespeare bent his head.
"And poor Kit? You saw Kit, I know ... with a hole below the eye,
they told me, where the knife went through. And that was our Kit, our
hope, pride, paragon, our Daphnis. Damnation, and this is art! Didst
hear that blotch-faced youngster, that Scotchman, how he prated of it,
laying down the law?"
"That Jonson, Tom, is a tall poet, or will be."
"The devil care I! Tall poet or not, he is no Englishman and
understands not the race. Art is not for us. We have dreamed dreams,
thou and I: and thy dreams are coming to glory. But the last dream of a
true Englishman is to own a few good English acres and die respected in
a dear, if narrow, round. Dear Will, there is more in this than greed.
There is the call of the land, which is home. For me--thou knowest--I
had ne'er the gift of saving. My bolt is shot, or almost: two years
at farthest must see the end of me. But when thou rememberest, bethink
thee that I understood the call. Wilt guess what I am writing, now at
the last? A great book--a sound book--and all of the red-herring! Ay,
the red-herring, staple of my own Yarmouth. Canst never, as an inland
man, rise to the virtues of that fish nor to the merit of my handling.
But I have read some pages of it to my neighbours there and I learn
from their approving looks that I shall die respected. Yet I, too,
forgot and dreamed of art...."
* * * * *
On the Bankside at the foot of Paris Garden Stairs, deserted now of
watermen, a youth sat with his teeth chattering.
Above, while he tried to clench his teeth, a window opened stealthily.
There was a heavy splash on the tideway, and the window shut to, softly
as it had opened. He watched. He was past fear. The body bobbed once to
the surface, half a furlong below the spreading, fading circles thrown
to the foot of Paris Garden Stairs. It did not rise again. The Bankside
knew its business.
A heavy footfall came down the steps to the landing-stage.
"A glorious night!"
The apprentice watched the river.
"A glorious night! A night to remember! Tell me, lad, have I made good
my promises, or have I not?"
"They rise thrice before sinking, I have always heard," twittered the
lad.
"What the devil art talking of? Here, take my cloak, if thou feelest
the chill. The watermen here ply by shifts, and we shall hail a boat
anon to take us over. Meanwhile, if thou hast eyes, boy, look on the
river--see the masts there, below bridge, the sun touching them!--see
the towers yonder, in the gold of it!
_London, thou art the flower of cities all!_
--Eh, lad?"
The sun's gold, drifted through the fog, touched the side of a small
row-boat nearing the farther shore. Behind, and to right and left along
Bankside, a few guitars yet tinkled. Across the tide came wafted the
voices of London's Christmas bells.