CHAPTER II.AT THE TAVERNS.
"We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow."—Henry IV., Part II.
Thatthis narrative—which is to be an account of things done, not an antiquarian "picture" of a past age—need not at every step be learnedly arrested by some description of a costume, street, house, aspect of society, feature of the time, or other such matter, let the reader be reminded at the outset that the year 1601 was of Elizabeth's reign the forty-second; that England was still in the first thrill of the greatest rejuvenescence the world ever knew; that new comforts, and new luxuries, and new thoughts, and new possibilities, and new means of pleasure, had given Englishmen a mad and boisterous zest for life; that gentlemen strutted in curiously shaped beards, and brilliant doublets, and silken trunk-hose, and ruffs, and laced velvet cloaks, and feathered hats; that ladies wore stiff bodices and vast sleeves, and robes open in front to show their petticoats, and farthingales to make those petticoats stand out; that many of these ladies paintedtheir faces and used false hair; that the attire of both sexes shone with jewels and gold and silver; that London folk were, in brief, the most richly dressed in the world; that most ordinary London houses were of wood and plaster, and gabled, and built so that the projecting upper stories darkened the narrow streets below; that the many-colored moving spectacle in those streets was diversified by curious and admiring foreigners from everywhere; that although coaches were yet of recent introduction, the stone paving sounded with them as well as with the carts and drays of traffic; that gray churches, and desolated convents, and episcopal palaces, and gentlemen's inns, and turreted mansions of nobility, abounded in city and suburbs; that the Catholics were still occasional sufferers from such persecution as they in their time had dealt to the Protestants; that there were still some very proud and masterful great lords, although they now came to court, and had fine mansions in the Strand or other suburbs, and no longer fostered civil or private war in their great stone castles in the country; that bully 'prentices, in woollen caps and leather or canvas doublets, were as quick to resent real or fancied offence, with their knives, as gentlemen were with silver-gilt-hilted rapiers; that the taverns resounded with the fanciful oaths of heavily bearded soldiers who had fought in Flanders and Spain; that therewere eager ears for every amazing lie of seafaring adventurers who had served under Drake or Raleigh against the Spanish; that tobacco was still a novelty, much relished and much affected; that ghosts and witches were believed in by all classes but perhaps a few "atheists" like Kit Marlowe and Sir Walter Raleigh; that untamed England was still "merry" with its jousts, its public spectacles, its rustic festivals, its holiday feasts, and its brawls, although Puritanism had already begun to show its spoil-sport face; and, to come to this particular first Monday in March, that the common London talk, when it was not of the private affairs of the talkers, had gone, for its theme, from the recent trial and death of the brave but restless Earl of Essex, to the proceedings now pending against certain of his lesser satellites in the Drury House conspiracy.
Before entering the Falcon, Hal Marryott sent a last sweeping look in all directions, half daring to hope that the lady in gray and murrey had not yet left the vicinity of the theatre. But the audience had gone its countless ways; at the Falcon river-stairs the watermen's cries and the noise of much embarking had subsided; and the only women in sight were of the Bankside itself, and of a far different class from that of her whom he sought. He sighed and followed his companions into the tavern.
They were passing through the common hall, on their way to a room where they could be served privately, when they were greeted by a tall, burly, black-bearded, bold-featured, weather-browned, middle-aged fellow in a greasy leather jerkin, an old worn-out red velvet doublet, and patched brown silk trunk-hose, and with a sorry-feathered remnant of a big-brimmed felt hat, a long sword and a dagger, these weapons hanging at his girdle. His shoes barely deserved the name, and his brown cloth cloak was a rag. His face had been glum and uneasy, but at sight of the players he instantly threw on the air of a dashing, bold rascal with whom all went merrily.
"'The actors are come hither, my lord,'" he cried, with a flourish, quoting from the play of the afternoon. "A good piece of work, Master Shakespeare. Excellent! More than excellent!"
"Despite thyself, for doing thy best to spoil it,—bawling out in the fencing match, Kit Bottle," put in Will Sly.
"Captain Bottle, an it please you, Master Sly," said the other, instantly taking on dignity; "at least when I carried Sir Philip Sidney off the field at Zutphen, and led my company after my lord Essex into Cadiz."
"And how goes the world with thee, Captain Kit?" inquired Mr. Shakespeare, with something of a kindly sadness in his tone.
"Bravely, bravely as ever, Master Will," replied Kit. "Still marching to this music!" And he shook a pouch at his belt, causing a clinking sound to come forth.
As the players passed on to their room, Kit plucked the sleeve of Hal Marryott, who was the last. When the two were alone in a corner, the soldier, having dropped his buoyant manner, whispered:
"Hast a loose shilling or two about thy clothes, lad? Just till to-morrow, I swear on the cross of my sword. I have moneys coming; that is, with a few testers to start dicing withal, I shall have the coin flowing me-ward. Tut, boy, I can't lie to thee; I haven't tasted meat or malt since yesterday."
"But what a devil—why, the pieces thou wert jingling?" said Hal, astonished.
"Pox, Hal, think'st thou I would bare my poverty to a gang of players—nay, no offence to thee, lad!" The soldier took from the pouch two or three links of a worthless iron chain. "When thou hast no coin, lad, let thy purse jingle loudest. 'Twill serve many a purpose."
"But if you could not buy a dinner," said Hal, smiling, "how did you buy your way into the playhouse?"
"Why, body of me," replied Bottle, struggling for a moment with a slight embarrassment, "the mind, look you, the mind calls for food, no less than thebelly. Could I satisfy both with a sixpence? No. What should it be, then? Beef and beer for the belly? Or a sight of the new play, to feed the mind withal? Thou know'st Kit Bottle, lad. Though he hath followed the wars, and cut his scores of Spanish throats, and hath no disdain of beef and beer, neither, yet as the mind is the better part—"
Moved at thought of the hungry old soldier's last sixpence having gone for the play, to the slighting of his stomach, Hal instantly pulled out what remained of his salary for the previous week, about five shillings in amount, and handed over two shillings sixpence, saying:
"I can but halve with thee, Kit. The other half is owed."
"Nay, lad," said Kit, after a swift glance around to see if the transaction was observed by the host or the drawers, "I'll never rob thee, persuade me as thou wilt. Two shillings I'll take, not a farthing more. Thou'rt a heart of gold, lad. To-morrow I'll pay thee, an I have to pawn my sword! To-morrow, as I'm a soldier! Trust old Kit!"
And the captain, self-styled, in great haste now that he had got the coin, strode rapidly from the place. Hal Marryott proceeded to the room where his fellow actors were. His cup of canary was already waiting for him on the table around which the players sat.
"What, Hal," cried Sly, "is it some state affair that Bottle hath let thee into?"
"I like the old swaggerer," said Hal, evading the question. "He hath taught me the best of what swordsmanship I know. He is no counterfeit soldier, 'tis certain; and he hath a pride not found in common rogues."
"I think he is in hard ways," put in Laurence Fletcher, the manager, "for all his jingle of coin. I saw him to-day lurking about the door of the theatre, now and again casting a wishful glance within, and then scanning the people as they came up, as if to find some friend who would pay for him. So at last I bade him come in free for the nonce. You should have seen how he took it."
"I warrant his face turned from winter to summer, in a breath," said Mr. Shakespeare. "Would the transformation were as easily wrought in any man!"
A winter indeed seemed to have settled upon his own heart, for this was the time, not only when his friends of the Essex faction were suffering, but also when the affair of the "dark lady," in which both Southampton and the Earl of Pembroke were involved with himself, had reached its crisis.
Hal smiled inwardly to think how Bottle had seized the occasion to touch a player's feelings by appearing to have spent his last sixpence for theplay; and forgave the lie, in admiration of the pride with which the ragged warrior had concealed his poverty from the others.
As Hal replaced his remaining three shillings in his pocket, his fingers met something hairy therein, which he had felt also in taking the coin out. He drew it forth to see what it was, and recognized the beard he had worn as the elderly lord. He then remembered to have picked it up from the stage, where it had accidentally fallen, and to have thrust it into his pocket in his haste to leave the theatre and see if the girl in murrey was still about. He now put it back into his pocket. After the wine had gone round three times, the players left the Falcon, to walk from the region of playhouses and bear-gardens to the city, preferring to use their legs rather than go by water from the Falcon stairs.
They went eastward past taverns, dwelling-houses, the town palace of the Bishop of Winchester, and the fine Church of St. Mary Overie, to the street then called Long Southwark; turned leftward to London Bridge, and crossed between the tall houses of rich merchants, mercers, and haberdashers, that of old were built thereon. The river's roar, through the arches beneath, required the players to shout when they talked, in crossing. Continuing northward and up-hill, past the taverns and fish-market of New Fish Street, their intention being to go at onceto the Mermaid, they heeded Master Condell's suggestion that they tarry on the way for another drink or two; and so turned into Eastcheap, the street of butchers' shops, and thence into the Boar's Head Tavern, on the south side of the way.
On entering a public parlor, the first person they saw was Captain Bottle, sitting at a table. On the stool opposite him was a young man in a gay satin doublet and red velvet cloak, and with an affected air of self-importance and worldly experience. This person and the captain were engaged in throwing dice, in the intervals of eating.
"What, old rook—captain, I mean," called out Mr. Sly; "must ever be shaking thine elbow, e'en 'twixt the dishes at thy supper?"
"An innocent game, sir," said Kit, promptly, concealing his annoyance from his companion. "No money risked, worth speaking of. God's body, doth a sixpence or two signify?" And he continued throwing the dice, manifestly wishing the actors would go about their business.
"'Tis true, when Captain Bottle plays, it cannot be called gaming," said Master Condell.
"He means," explained Bottle to his companion, in a confidential tone, "that I am clumsy with the dice. A mere child, beshrew me else! A babe in swaddling clothes! 'Tis by the most marvellous chance I've been winning from you, these fewminutes. 'Twill come your way soon, and you'll turn my pockets inside out. Pray wait for me a moment, while I speak to these gentlemen. We have business afoot together."
Kit thereupon rose, strode over to the players, drew them around him, and said, in a low tone:
"What, boys, will ye spoil old Kit's labor? Will ye scare that birdling away? Will ye keep money from the needy? This gull is clad in coin, he is lined with it, he spits it, he sweats it! He is some country beau, the dandy of some market town, the son of some rustical justice, the cock of some village. He comes up to London once a year, sees a little of the outside of our life here, thinks he plays the mad rascal in a tavern or two, and goes home to swagger it more than ever in his village, with stories of the wickedness he hath done in London. An I get not his money, others will, and worse men,—and, perchance, leave him in a worse condition."
"We shall leave him to thy mercy, and welcome. Kit," said Mr. Shakespeare. "He shall never know thy tricks from us. Come our ways, lads. These village coxcombs ought to pay something for their egregious vanity and ignorance. This fellow will have the less means of strutting it in the eyes of the louts, when Kit hath had his way." The poet was doubtless thinking of the original of his Justice Shallow.7
So the players went on to another room, Hal remaining to say in Kit's ear:
"I knew fellows like this ere I came from the country, and how they prated of London, and of their wildness here. Gull such, if thou must be a cheater."
"Cheater," echoed Kit. "Nay, speak not the word as if it smelt so bad. Should a man resign his faculties and fall back on chance? Do we leave things to chance in war? Do we not use our skill there, and every advantage God hath given us? Is not a game a kind of mimic war, and shall not a man use skill and stratagem in games? Go to, lad. Am I a common coney-catcher? Do I cheat with a gang? Do I consort with gull-gropers? An this rustic hath any trick worth two of mine, is he not welcome to play it?"8
Whereupon Kit, making no allusion to the borrowed two shillings, although he had already won several times two shillings from the country fopling, returned to the latter and the dice, while Hal joined his own party.
The sight of savory pastry and the smell of fish a-cooking had made some of the players willing to stay and sup at the Boar's Head; but Shakespeare reminded them that Mr. Burbage was to meet them at the Mermaid later. So they rose presently to set forth, all of them, and especially Hal Marryott,the warmer in head and heart for the wine they had taken. Hal had become animated and talkative. A fuller and keener sense of things possessed him,—of the day's success, of his own share therein, of the merits of his companions and himself, and of the charms of the lady in murrey and gray. So rich and vivid became his impression of the unknown beauty, that there began to be a seeming as if she were present in spirit. It was as if her immaterial presence pervaded the atmosphere, as if she overheard the talk that now rattled from him, as if her fine eyes were looking from Gothic church windows and the overhanging gables of merchants' houses, while he walked on with the players in the gathering dusk of evening. The party went westward, out of Eastcheap, past London stone in Candlewick Street, through Budge Row and Watling Street, and northward into Bread Street. The last was lined with inns and taverns, and into one of the latter, on the west side of the street, near "golden Cheapside," the actors finally strode. Its broad, plastered, pictured front was framed and intersected by heavy timbers curiously carved, and the great sign that hung before it was the figure of a mermaid in the waves. The tavern stood a little space back from the street, toward which its ground-floor casements projected far out; and, in addition to its porched front entrance, it had passageways at sideand rear, respectively from Cheapside and Friday Street.9
The long room to which the players ascended had a blaze already in the fireplace (chimneys having become common during the later Tudor reigns), a great square oak table, a few armchairs, some benches, and several stools. The tapestry on the walls was new, for the defeat of the Spanish Armada, which it portrayed, had occurred but a dozen years before. Ere the actors were seated, lighted candles had been brought, and Master Heminge had stepped into the kitchen to order a supper little in accord with the season (it was now Lent) or with the statutes, but obtainable by the privileged,—ribs of beef, capon, sauces, gravies, custard, and other trifles, with a bit of fish for the scrupulous. For players are hungriest after a performance, and there have ever been stomachs least fishily inclined on fish-days, as there are always throats most thirsty for drink where none is allowed; and the hostess of the Mermaid was evidently of a mind with Dame Quickly, who argued, "What's a joint of mutton or two in a whole Lent?"10After their walk in the raw air, and regardless of the customary order at meals, the players made a unanimous call for mulled sack. The drawer, who had come at their bidding without once crying "Anon," used good haste to serve it.
"Times have changed," said Mr. Shakespeare,having hung up cloak, hat, and short rapier, and leaning back in his chair, with a relish of its comfort after a day of exertion and tension. "'Tis not so long since there were ever a dozen merry fellows to sup with us when we came from the play."
"'Tis strange we see nothing of Raleigh," said Sly, standing by the carved chimneypiece, and stretching his hands out over the fire.
"Nay, 'twould be stranger an he came to meet us now," said Laurence Fletcher, "after his show of joy at the earl's beheading."
The allusion was to Raleigh's having witnessed from a window in the Tower the death of his great rival, Essex.
"Nay," said Shakespeare, "though he was a foe to Essex, who was of our patrons, Sir Walter is no enemy to us. I dare swear he hath stood our advocate at court in our present disfavor. But while our friends of one side are now in prison or seclusion, those of the other side stand aloof from us. And for our player-fellowship, as rivalry among the great hath made bitter haters, so hath competition among actors and scribblers spoilt good comradeship."
"Thou'rt thinking how brawny Ben used to sit with us at this table," said Sly.
"And wishing he sat here again," said Shakespeare.
"Tut," said Condell, "he is happier at the Deviltavern, where his heavy wisdom hath no fear of being put out of countenance by thy sharper wit. Will."
"A pox on Ben Jonson for a surly, envious dog!" exclaimed Laurence Fletcher. "I marvel to hear thee speak kindly of him, Will. After thy soliciting us to play his comedy, for him to make a mock of thee and our other writers, in the silly pedantic stuff those brats squeak out at the Blackfriars!" Master Fletcher was, evidently, easily heated on the subject of the satirical pieces written by Jonson for the Chapel Royal boys to play at the Blackfriars Theatre, in which the Globe plays were ridiculed.11"A pox on him, I say, and his tedious 'humors!'" Whereupon Master Fletcher turned his attention to the beef, which had just arrived.
"Nay," said Shakespeare, "his merit hath had too slow a greeting, and too scant applause. So the wit in him hath soured a little,—as wine too long kept exposed, for want of being in request."
"Well," cried Hal Marryott, warmed by copious draughts of the hot sugared sack, "may I never drink again but of hell flame, nor eat but at the devil's own table, if aught ever sourmeto such ingratitude for thy beneficence, Master Shakespeare!"
"Go to, Harry! I have not benefited thee, nor Ben Jonson neither."
"Never, indeed! God wot!" exclaimed Hal, spearing with his knife-point a slice of beef, to convey it from his platter to his mouth(forks were not known in England till ten years later). "To open thy door to a gentleman just thrown out of an ale-house, to feed him when he hath not money to pay for a radish, to lodge him when he hath not right of tenure to a dung-hill,—these are no benefits, forsooth."
"Was that thy condition, then, when he took thee as coadjutor?" Fletcher asked, a little surprised.
"That and worse," answered Hal. "Hath Mr. Shakespeare never told you?"
"Never but thou wert a gentleman desirous of turning player. Let's hear it, an thou wilt."
"Ay, let us!" cried Heminge and Condell; and Sly added: "For a player to turn gentleman is nothing wonderful now, but that a gentleman should turn player hath puzzled me."12
"Why," quoth Harry, now vivacious with wine, and quite ready to do most of the talking, "you shall see how a gentleman might easily have turned far worse than player. 'Twas when I was newly come to London, in 1598, not three years ago. Ye've all heard me tell of the loss of mine estate in Oxfordshire, through the deviltry of the law and of my kinsman. When my cousin took possession, he would have got me provided for at one of the universities, to be rid of me; but I had no mind to bemade a poor scholar of; for, look you, my bringing up in my father's house had been fit for a nobleman's son. I knew my Latin and my lute, could hunt and hawk with any, and if I had no practice at tilt and tourney, I made up for that lack by my skill with the rapier. Well, just when I should have gone to Italy. Germany, and France, for my education, my father died, and my mother; and I was turned out of house, wherefore I say, a curse on all bribe-taking judges and unnatural kin! I told my cousin what he might do with the dirty scholarship he offered me, and a pox on it! and swore I would hang for a thief ere I would take anything of his giving. All that I had in the world was a horse, the clothes on my body,—for I would not go back to his house for others, having once left it,—my rapier and dagger, and a little purse of crowns and angels. There was but one friend whom I thought it would avail me to seek, and to his house I rode, in Hertfordshire. He was a Catholic knight, whose father had sheltered my grandfather, a Protestant, in the days of Queen Mary, and now went I to him, to make myself yet more his debtor in gratitude. Though he had lived most time in France, since the Babington conspiracy, he now happened to be at home; yet he could do nothing for me, his estate being sadly diminished, and he about to sail again for the country where Catholics are safer. But he gaveme a letter to my lord of Essex, by whom, as by my father, he was no less loved for being a Catholic. When I read the letter, I thought my fortune made. To London I rode, seeing myself already high in the great earl's service. At the Bell, in Carter Lane, I lodged, and so gleesome a thing it was to me to be in London, so many were the joys to be bought here, so gay the taverns, so irresistible the wenches, that ere ever I found time to present my letter to the earl I had spent my angels and crowns, besides the money I had got for my horse in Smithfield. But I was easy in mind. My lord would assuredly take me into his house forthwith, on reading my friend's letter. The next morning, as I started for Essex House, a gentleman I had met in the taverns asked me if I had heard the news. I had not; so he told me. My lord of Essex had yesterday turned his back on the queen, and clapped his hand upon his sword,—you remember the time, masters—"
"Ay," said Sly. "The queen boxed his ears for it. The dispute was over the governorship of Ireland."
"My lord was in disgrace," Hal went on, "and like to be charged with high treason. So little I knew of court matters, I thought this meant his downfall, and that the letter, if seen, might work only to my prejudice and my friend's. So I burned it at the tavern fire, and wondered what a murrain to do. I went tolodge in Honey Lane, pawned my weapons, then my cloak, and finally the rest of my clothes, having bought rags in Houndsditch in the meantime. Rather than go back to Oxfordshire I would have died in the street, and was like to do so, at last; for my host, having asked for his money one night when I was drunk and touchy, got such an answer that he and his drawer cudgelled me and threw me out. So bruised I was, that I could scarce move; but I got up, and walked to the Conduit in Cheapside. There I lay down, full of aches; and then was it that Mr. Shakespeare, returning late from the tavern, happened to step on me as I lay blocking the way. What it was that moved him to stop and examine me, I know not. But, having done so, he led me to his lodgings in St. Helen's; whence, for one in my condition, it was truly no downward step to the playhouse stage,—and thankful was I when he offered me that step!"
"I perceived from the manner of thy groan, when I trod on thee, 'twas no common vagabond under foot," said Shakespeare.
Later in the evening, Mr. Burbage came in, not to eat, for he had already supped at his house in Holywell Street, Shoreditch, but to join a little in the drinking. The room was now full of tobacco smoke, for most of the players had set their pipes a-going. Mr. Shakespeare did not smoke; but HalMarryott, as a youth who could let no material joy go by untasted, was as keen a judge of Trinidado or Nicotian as any sea-dog from "the Americas."
"'Tis how many hundred years, Will, since this Prince Hamlet lived?" said Heminge, the talk having led thereto; and he went on, not waiting for answer, "Yet to-day we players bring him back to life, and make him to be remembered."
"Ay," replied Shakespeare, "many a dead and rotten king oweth a resurrection and posthumous fame to some ragged scholar or some poor player."
"And we players," said Burbage, with a kind of sigh, "who make dead men remembered, are by the very nature of our craft doomed to be forgot. Who shall know our very names, three poor hundred years hence?"
"Why," said Condell, "our names might live by the printing of them in the books of the plays we act in; a printed book will last you a long time."
"Not such books as these thievish printers make of our plays," said Sly, himself a writer of plays.
"Marry, I should not wish long life to their blundering, distorted versions of any play I had a hand in making," said Shakespeare.
"But consider," said Condell; "were a decent printing made of all thy plays, Will, all in one book, from the true manuscripts we have at the theatre, and our names put in the book, Dick's name at thehead, then might not our names live for our having acted in thy plays?"
Mr. Burbage smiled amusedly, but said nothing, and Shakespeare answered:
"'Twould be a dead kind of life for them, methinks; buried in dusty, unsold volumes in the book-sellers' shops in Paul's Churchyard."
"Nay, I would venture something," said Master Heminge, thoughtfully, "that a book ofthyplays were sure to be opened."
"Ay, that some shopman's 'prentice might tear out the leaves, to wrap fardels withal," said Shakespeare. "Three hundred years, Dick said. 'Tis true, books of the ancients have endured to this day; but if the world grows in learning as it hath in our own time, each age making its own books, and better and wiser ones, what readers shall there be, think you, in the year of our Lord 1900, for the rude stage-plays of Will Shakespeare, or even for his poems, that be writ with more care?"
"'Twould be strange, indeed," said Burbage, "that a player should be remembered after his death, merely for his having acted in some certain play or set of plays." He did not add, but did he think, that Will Shakespeare's plays were more like to be remembered, if at all, for Mr. Burbage's having acted in them?13
"Why art thou silent, lad," said Shakespeare toHal Marryott, by way of changing the subject, "and thy gaze lost in thy clouds of smoke, as if thou sawest visions there?"
"I' faith, I do see a vision there," said Harry, now in the enraptured stage of wine, and eager to unbosom himself. "Would I were a poet, like thee, that I might describe it. Ye gods, what a face! The eyes have burned into my heart. Cupid hath made swift work of me!"
"Why, this must be since yesterday," said Sly.
"Since four o' the clock to-day," cried Hal.
"Then thou canst no more than have seen her," remarked Fletcher.
"To see her was to worship her. Drink with me to her eyes, an ye love me, masters!"
"To her nose also, and mouth and cheeks and ears, an thou wilt," said Sly, suiting action to word.
"Don't think this is love in thee, lad," said Fletcher. "Love is of slower growth."
"Then all our plays are wrong," said Sly.
"Why, certes, it may be love," said Shakespeare. "Love is a flame of this fashion: the first sight of a face will kindle it in shape of a spark. An there be no further matter to fan and feed the spark withal, 'twill soon die, having never been aught but a spark, keen though its scorch for a time; a mere seedling of love, a babe smothered at birth. But an there be closer commerce, to give fuel andbreeze to the spark, it shall grow into flame, a flame, look you, that with proper feeding shall endure forever, like sacred fires judiciously replenished and maintained; but too much fuel, or too little, or a change in the wind, will smother it, or starve it, or violently put it out. Harry hath the spark well lighted, as his raving showeth, and whether it shall soon burn out, or wax into a blaze, lies with future circumstance."
Harry declared that, if not otherwise fed, it would devour himself. Thereupon Master Sly suggested drowning it in sack; and one would have thought Hal was trying to do so. But the more he drank, the more was he engulfed in ideas of her who had charmed him. Still having a kind of delusion that she was in a manner present, he discoursed as if for her to overhear.
Ere he knew it, the other players were speaking of bed. Mr. Burbage had already slipped out to fulfil some mysterious engagement for the night within the city, which matter, whatever it was, had been the cause of his coming after supper from his home beyond the bars of Bishopsgate Street without the walls. Master Heminge's apprentices (for Master Heminge was a grocer as well as an actor) had come to escort him and Master Condell to their houses in Aldermanbury; and sturdy varlets were below to serve others of the company in like duty. At thislate hour such guards against robbers were necessary in London streets. But Harry, who then lodged in the same house with Mr. Shakespeare, in St. Helen's, Bishopsgate,14was not yet for going home. He would make the cannikin clink for some hours more. Knowing the lad's ways, and his ability to take care of himself, Mr. Shakespeare left him to his desires; and at last Harry had no other companion than Will Sly, who still had head and stomach for another good-night flagon or two. When Sly in turn was shaky on his legs and half asleep, Harry accompanied him and his man to their door, reluctantly saw it close upon them, and then, solitary in night-wrapped London, looked up and down the narrow street, considering which way to roam in search of congenial souls, minded, like himself, to revel out the merry hours of darkness.
He loathed the thought of going to bed yet, and would travel far to find a fellow wassailer. His three shillings—though that sum then would buy more than a pound buys to-day—had gone at the Mermaid. He bethought himself of the taverns at which he might have credit. The list not offering much encouragement, he at last started off at random, leaving events to chance.
Plunging and swaying, rather than walking, he traversed a few streets, aimlessly turning what corners presented themselves. The creaking ofthe signs overhead in the wind mingled with the more mysterious sounds of the night. Once he heard a sudden rush of feet from a narrow lane, and instantly backed against a doorway, whipping out rapier and dagger. Two gaunt, ill-looking rascals, disclosed by a lantern hanging from an upper window, stood back and inspected him a moment; then, probably considering him not worth the risk, vanished into the darkness whence they had emerged.
More roaming brought Hal into Paternoster Row, and thence into Ave Maria Lane, giving him an occasional glimpse at the left, between houses, of the huge bulk of St. Paul's blotting darkly a darkness of another tone. At Ludgate, boldly passing himself off upon the blinking watchman as a belated Page_of Sir Robert Cecil's, he got himself let through, when he ought to have been taken before the constable as a night-walker; and so down the hill he went into Fleet Street. The taverns were now closed for the night to all outward appearance, the bells of Bow and other churches having rung the curfew some hours since,—at nine o'clock. But Hal knew that merriment was awake behind more than one cross-barred door-post or red lattice; and he tried several doors, but in vain. At last he found himself under the sign of the Devil, on the south side of the street, close to Temple Bar.There was likelihood that Ben Jonson might be there, for Ben also was a fellow of late hours. Hal's heart suddenly warmed toward Master Jonson; he forgot the satire on the Globe plays, the apparent ingratitude to Shakespeare, and thought only of the convivial companion.
Much knocking on the door brought a servant of the tavern, by whom Hal, learning that Master Jonson was indeed above, sent up his name. He was at length admitted, and found his way to a large room in which he beheld the huge form and corrugated countenance of him he sought. Master Jonson filled a great chair at one side of a square table, and was discoursing to a group of variously attired gentlemen. Temple students, and others, this audience being in all different stages of wine. He greeted Master Hal in a somewhat severe yet paternal manner, beckoned him to his chair-side, and inquired in an undertone how Mr. Shakespeare fared. Manifestly the "war of the theatres," as it was called, had not destroyed the private esteem between the two dramatists. Hal's presence caused the talk to fall, in time, upon the new "Hamlet," which some of the then present members of the tribe of Ben had seen.
One young gentleman of the Temple, in the insolent stage of inebriety, spoke sneeringly of the play; whereupon Hal answered hotly. Both flashed outrapiers at the same instant, and as the table was between them Hal leaped upon it, to reach more quickly his opponent. Only the prompt action of Master Jonson, who mounted the table, making it groan beneath his weight, and thrust himself between the two, cut short the brawl. But now, each antagonist deeming himself the aggrieved person, and the Templar being upheld by several of the company, and a great noise of tongues arising, and the host running in to suppress the tumult, it was considered advisable to escort Master Marryott from the place. He was therefore hustled out by Master Jonson, the host, and a tapster; and so found himself eventually in the street, the door barred against him.
He then perceived that he was without his rapier. It had been wrested from him at the first interference with the quarrel. Wishing to recover it, and in a wrathful spirit, he pounded on the door with his dagger hilt, and called out loudly for the return of his weapon; but his efforts being misinterpreted, he was left to pound and shout in vain. Baffled and enraged, he started back toward Ludgate, with some wild thought of enlisting a band of ruffians to storm the tavern. But the wine had now got so complete possession of him that, when a figure emerging from Water Lane bumped heavily against him, all memory of the recent incident was knocked out of his mind.
"What in the fiend's name—"grumbled the newcomer; then suddenly changed his tone. "Why, od's-body, 'tis Master Marryott! Well met, boy! Here be thy two shillings, and never say Kit Bottle payeth not his debts. I've just been helping my friend to his lodging here at the sign of the Hanging Sword. 'Twas the least I could do for him. Art for a merry night of it, my bawcock? Come with me to Turnbull Street. There be a house there, where I warrant a welcome to any friend of Kit Bottle's. I've been out of favor there of late, but now my pockets sing this tune" (he rattled the coin in them), "and arms will be open for us."
Rejoiced at this encounter, Hal took the captain's arm, and strode with him through Shoe Lane, across Holborn Bridge, through Cow Lane, past the Pens of Smithfield, and so—undeterred by sleeping watchmen or by the post-and-chain bar—into Turnbull Street.15Kit knocked several times at the door of one of the forward-leaning houses, before he got a response. Then a second-story casement was opened, and a hoarse female voice asked who was below.
"What, canst not see 'tis old Kit, by the flame of his nose?" replied the captain.
The woman told him to wait a minute, and withdrew from the window.
"See, lad," whispered Bottle, "'tis late hours when Kit Bottle can't find open doors. To saytrue, I was afeard my welcome here might be a little halting; but it seems old scores are forgot. We shall be merry here, Hal!"
A sudden splash at their very feet made them start back and look up at the window. A pair of hands, holding an upturned pail, was swiftly drawn back, and the casement was then immediately closed.
Bottle smothered an oath. "Wert caught in any of that shower, lad?" he asked Hal.
"'Scaped by an inch," said Hal, with a hiccough. "Marry, is this thy welcome?"
Kit's wrath against the inmates of the house now exploded. Calling them "scullions," "scavengers," and names still less flattering, he began kicking and hammering on the door as if to break it down. Moved by the spirit of violence, Hal joined him in this demonstration. The upper windows opened, and voices began screaming "Murder!" and "Thieves!" In a short time several denizens of the neighborhood—which was a neighborhood of nocturnal habits—appeared in the street. Seeing how matters stood, they fell upon Kit and Hal, mauling the pair with fists, and tearing off their outer garments.
Soon a cry went up, "The watch!" whereupon Hal, with memories of restraint and inconvenience to which he had once before been put, called upon Kit to follow, and made a dash toward the end of the street. He speedily was out of pursuit, and thesound of Bottle's voice growling out objurgations, close behind him, satisfied him that the old soldier was at his heels. Hal, therefore, ran on, making no impediment of the bars, and passed the Pens without slack of speed. Stopping in Cow Lane he looked back, and to his surprise saw that he was now quite alone.
He went immediately back over his tracks in search of Bottle, but found no one. Turnbull Street had subsided into its former outward appearance of desertion. Thinking that Bottle might have passed him in the darkness, Hal returned southward. When he arrived in Fleet Street he retained but a confused, whirling recollection of what had occurred. Yet his mood was still for company and carouse. With great joy, therefore, he observed that a humble little ale-house to which he sometimes resorted, near Fleet Bridge, was opening for the day, as dawn was appearing. He went in and ordered wine.
The tapster, who knew him, remarked with astonishment that he was without hat or cloak; and the morning being very cold, and Hal unlikely to meet any person of quality at that hour, the fellow offered him a surcoat and cap, such as were worn by apprentices, to protect him from chill on the way homeward. Hal, who was now half comatose, passively let himself be thus fortified against the weather. With the sum repaid him by Bottle he was able tobuy good cheer; his only lack was of company to share it with. He could not hope at this hour to fall in with another late-hour man; it was now time for the early rising folk to be abroad.
In from the street came half a dozen hardy looking fellows, calling for beer to be quickly drawn, as they had far to go to their work. Their dress was of leather and coarse cloth, and the tools they carried were those of carpenters. But to Hal, who now saw things vaguely, they were but fellow mortals, and thirsty. He welcomed them with a flourish and an imperative invitation to drink. This they readily accepted, grinning the while with boorish amusement. When they perforce departed, Hal, unwilling to lose new-found company so soon, attached himself to them; and was several times hindered from dragging them into taverns as they passed, by their promise, given with winks invisible to him, that they would drink on arriving at their destination.
So he went, upheld between a pair of them, and heeding not the way they took. Though it was now daylight, he was past recognizing landmarks. He had the dimmest sense of passing a succession of walled and turreted mansions at his left hand; then of catching glimpses of more open and park-like spaces at his right hand; of going, in a grave kind of semi-stupor, through two gateways and as many courtyards; of being passed on, with the companionsto whom he clung, by dull warders, and by a busy, inattentive, pompous man of authority to whom his comrades reported in a body; of traversing with them, at last, a passage and a kind of postern, and emerging in a great garden. Here the carpenters seemed to become sensible of having committed a serious breach in sportively letting him be admitted as one of their own band. They held a brief consultation, looking around in a half frightened way to see if they were observed. They finally led him into an alley, formed by hedgerows, deposited him gently on the ground, and hastened off to another part of the garden. Once recumbent, he turned upon his side and went instantly to sleep.
When he awoke, several hours later, without the least knowledge what garden was this to which his eyes opened, or the least recollection how he had come into it, he saw, looking down at him in mild surprise, a slight, yellow-haired, pale-faced, high-browed, dark-eyed, elderly lady, with a finely curved nose, a resolute mouth, and a sharp chin, and wearing a tight-bodied, wide-skirted costume of silvered white velvet and red silk, with a gold-laced, ermine-trimmed mantle, and a narrow, peaked velvet hat. Hal, in his first bewilderment, wondered where it was that he had previously seen this lady.
"Madam," he said, in a voice husky with cold,"I seem to be an intruder. By your favor, what place is this?"
The lady looked at him sharply for a moment, then answered, simply:
"'Tis the garden of Whitehall palace. Who are you?"
Hal suppressed a startled exclamation. He remembered now where he had seen the lady: 'twas at the Christmas court performances. He flung into a kneeling posture, at her small, beribboned, cloth-shod feet.
"I am your Majesty's most loyal, most worshipful subject," he said.
"And what the devil are you doing here?" asked Queen Elizabeth.