William Shakespeare as he lived Part 35

"Gone on sh.o.r.e," was the brief answer returned.

"Captain on board?" inquired the horseman.

"Ash.o.r.e with the Count."

"Where do they lodge?"

"At the hostel within yonder gateway."

Accordingly, the horseman, after landing, rode straight up to the Checquers, and unceremoniously entered the apartment in which the Count and Captain were seated.

"Welcome, good Martin," said the Count, rising, "you see we keep time and tryst here."

"I am here at my time," said the traveller.

"I am right glad you have so soon joined us," said the Count; "for, sooth to say, both the Captain and myself are most anxious to be on the broad waves of the Atlantic."

"Our necessaries are by this time on board," said the Captain; "and as this honourable person makes up the file of gentlemen engaged for the expedition, what stays us, but we warp out to sea at once? In an hour I will undertake to be under weigh."

"Be it so," said the Count. "In an hour myself and friend will be on board."

And the Captain rose, and, after another cup of Canary, proceeded to his s.h.i.+p.

"Have you succeeded in learning any fresh tidings?" said the Count to our old friend Martin.

"I have journeyed far, and in something profited by my travel," said Martin. "I have visited the Netherlands, and also been in Warwicks.h.i.+re, since I met you in London, and now I keep tryste, and am here as appointed."

"You are ever worthy and zealous in the cause of your friends," returned the Count; "what are your tidings?"

"Briefly, then," said Martin, "I have reason to believe the good Walter lives; but, if such be the case, he is prisoner to the Spaniard--the worst sort of captivity--since he is in the hands of those who know no touch of pity, and are incensed against the English. This letter will better inform you of his situation."

The Count took the letter and perused it. "We will speed to his a.s.sistance," he said, as he refolded it. "And, now, how goes all in Warwicks.h.i.+re. Hath Sir Hugh Clopton returned?"

"Of Warwicks.h.i.+re I have not much news to give," said Martin. "Sir Hugh is still in the Low Countries. At Shottery all is as usual. Your steward commends him to you. Yet, stay, there is some further news of your own neighbourhood. Your old playmate, Anne Hathaway, is married to young Shakespeare."

"That I concluded must have taken place," said the Count, "since, when I left Shottery, they were to be united in a few days. I trust she will be happy. The bridegroom is, however, somewhat young to make a steady husband. I think I have heard you say you knew something of the lad: report speaks of him as a wild youth."

"Report is in something correct, I believe," said Martin. "To say I knew him well would be to say more than I should be warranted in affirming.

What I did know of that young man served me for matter of reflection.

For his wildness I cannot offer excuse, except that he hath a mounting spirit; nay, I will venture to affirm, that had your expedition been delayed a week, he would have joined in it."

"'Tis better as it is," said the Count, "I would not that my good friend Anne should so soon lose her husband."

"There is, however," continued Martin, "startling news from London, and which I rather think I am the first to announce in this town, as I over-rode a foundered post between this place and Canterbury. The Queen of Scots, 'tis said, is again involved in a dangerous conspiracy to destroy our brave mistress, Queen Elizabeth."

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

THE BENEDICT.

The course of events connected with our story has necessarily obliged us to deviate from the locality in which we have heretofore progressed. We must, however, now again, after such brief excursion, return to the spot from whence we started, and as the sun s.h.i.+nes brightly upon park and field, and wooded glade, once more look upon fair and fertile Warwicks.h.i.+re.

Sweet Stratford-upon-Avon! those who know thee, and know thee well--who have lingered in thy old-world streets, and wandered in thy neighbourhood, breathing the scented air which smells so wooingly amongst the shadowy groves and unfrequented glades around, will acknowledge that there is no place in England, for situation and beauty, thy superior.

There is a freshness in thy neighbourhood, a quiet beauty in thy streets, a cozy comfort in many of thy dwellings, and a venerable and impressive grandeur in thy religious edifices, belonging alone to an English town of good and ancient descent. Was a stranger to be dropped suddenly in the centre of this town, whilst he looked around, and noted the sweet aspect of the locality he had so suddenly arrived in, methinks he would say to himself that he had reached a spot noted and celebrated in the world's esteem beyond most others in the kingdom. Yes, in this rural picture we think the stranger might find all these peculiar features characteristic of the old haunts in which Englishmen of a former age dwelt so happily. Those verdant villages, which made the English, however much they loved military adventure the whilst they formed the hosts of kings in the vasty fields of France, look back from the splendour of the tented field upon their own pleasant woodlands and quiet homes with fond yearning.

Tuck of drum might sound, the horn's sweet note be carried by the evening breeze, as it floated over some stricken field during those splendid wars of the Edwards and Henries. The gonfalon might flutter, and the knight, with all his train, ride stately amidst the white range of tents; the archer might lean upon his bow and gaze upon the splendour of the host. But the n.o.ble, and the knight, and the peasant-born soldier of England, alike sighed in his heart of hearts for the hour that was to see his foreign marches over, and himself amidst the scenes of his island home.

"That England hedged in with the main, That precious gem set in the silver sea."

If then our readers love fair Warwicks.h.i.+re, and admire the grandeur and beauty of its scenery as we do, they will scarce be angry with us for again leading them back toward Stratford-upon-Avon.

And Shakespeare is married. One great event of his life is pa.s.sed. He dwells with his wife in his native town; beyond the precincts of which he is comparatively unknown, or, being known, but little regarded.

He is scarcely more than eighteen years of age, and his wife is four-and-twenty. Their means are small, and their comforts few. The prospect before them is not of the brightest, but they are young, and in youth all seems beautiful because all is new. A female, however, of twenty-four, wedded to a youth of eighteen--_a mere boy_, as she terms him--will be likely to have her own way in everything; at least she will try to have it, and that is almost as bad. We fear, too, the blooming Anne is a "little shrew." She hath a high spirit withal, and we opine that her tastes and dispositions are not in exact accordance with those of her youthful husband. He is all imagination--all fire, energy, and spirit; whilst she is more matter of fact. The G.o.ds have certainly not made her poetical, and she thanks the G.o.ds therefore. And then her age.

Beautiful as she is in face and form, she is not matched in respect of years, and she knows it.

"Too old, by heaven; let still the woman take An elder than herself--so wears she to him, So sways she level in her husband's heart."[12]

[Footnote 12: "Twelfth Night."]

William Shakespeare had married in opposition to the advice of his parents. The handsome Anne had done the same in regard to her's. Such cases are by no means rare in their walk of life. The present is all that is considered, the future unthought of. Old folks do sometimes, however, know more than young ones give them credit for; and in this instance they prognosticated the match would not be a happy one.

That the youthful poet felt some sort of disappointment when he found how widely his disposition and tastes differed from the companion he had chosen, there can be little doubt.

His extraordinary flights of genius, his wondrous conceptions, she had no part in. She, indeed, could scarce understand them; and that which she could not comprehend she looked upon as the rhapsodizing of a boy.

Even those beautiful descriptions, and the music of his honeyed vows, for Shakespeare, although married, was still a lover, were now listened to without the smile of appreciation. "Alas!" he said to himself, "maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives."

In short, the youthful poet found that he had matched unhappily. There was little sympathy in feeling, although there might have been in choice; and so their loves pa.s.sed

"Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, Brief as the lightning in the collied night."

They dwelt in Henley Street, in the house next to that in which the youth's parents inhabited; and he occasionally a.s.sisted his father in his business as a dealer in wool.

In Stratford, at this time, there was a knot of young fellows celebrated for little else beside their idleness, their wit, and their reckless daring. One or two of these were apprenticed to different trades in the town. One had made the voyage, and returned a reckless desperado, although a jovial and most amusing companion; another had served for a brief s.p.a.ce in the Low Countries, "the land of pike and caliver," where finding hard knocks more plentiful than either pay or promotion, and his courage none of the greatest, he had deserted his colours, and returned home with a marvellous capacity for imbibing strong liquors, and relating wondrous stories of his own exploits whilst a soldier:--

"Of healths _five_ fathom deep, Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets, And all the current of the heady fight."

With these youths young Shakespeare had before been in the habit of a.s.sociating. Their eccentricity amused him; there was a kind of character in their lives which he loved to contemplate. Before his marriage he had loved however to indulge his thoughts a good deal alone, to wander and meditate amidst the delicious scenery in the neighbourhood. Now it was somewhat different, he had home and its duties to attend to, besides matters connected with his father's business, to keep him from so continually excursionizing as heretofore.

His meetings with these choice and master spirits, these jolly companions who "daffed the world aside, and bid it pa.s.s," were, therefore, for the most part, in after hours, and when the business of the day was over.

Besides these lads of mettle, there was another person whose company young Shakespeare had of late much affected, and in whose society he found a perfect fund of entertainment, a feeling which was quite mutual, as this friend was of a capacity as fully to appreciate the extraordinary talents and delightful society of the juvenile poet, as the latter was to enjoy the wit and humour of his entertainer.

This person, who was a resident at Stratford, although not a native there, was a most singular compound. He was possessed of some property in the town; but his expenditure was generally greater than his means warranted, and he was consequently obliged often to eke out his funds by laying his companions under contribution. He was ever in difficulties, and yet ever jovial, hospitable, and with his friends around him. His eccentricity, his wit, and his follies were a continual feast to young Shakespeare; his absurdities, and the sc.r.a.pes he got into, a continual tax upon his intimates to get him respectably clear of. By the sober and puritanical of the townsfolk he was detested, for he made them the subject of his biting jests. By the respectable citizen he was feared as an intimate, for his tongue was a continual libel upon all his acquaintance. By the more light-hearted and careless, who laughed _with_ him and _at_ him, he was tolerated, and even sought after, for his amusing qualities.