Читать книгу Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare, Euseby Treen, Joseph Carnaby, and Silas Gough, Clerk - Walter Savage Landor - Страница 6
EXAMINATION,
ETC., ETC.
ОглавлениеAbout one hour before noontide the youth William Shakspeare, accused of deer-stealing, and apprehended for that offence, was brought into the great hall at Charlecote, where, having made his obeisance, it was most graciously permitted him to stand.
The worshipful Sir Thomas Lucy, Knight, seeing him right opposite, on the farther side of the long table, and fearing no disadvantage, did frown upon him with great dignity; then, deigning ne’er a word to the culprit, turned he his face toward his chaplain, Sir Silas Gough, who stood beside him, and said unto him most courteously, and unlike unto one who in his own right commandeth,—
“Stand out of the way! What are those two varlets bringing into the room?”
“The table, sir,” replied Master Silas, “upon the which the consumption of the venison was perpetrated.”
The youth, William Shakspeare, did thereupon pray and beseech his lordship most fervently, in this guise:—
“Oh, sir! do not let him turn the tables against me, who am only a simple stripling, and he an old codger.”
But Master Silas did bite his nether lip, and did cry aloud,—
“Look upon those deadly spots!”
And his worship did look thereupon most staidly, and did say in the ear of Master Silas, but in such wise that it reached even unto mine,
“Good honest chandlery, methinks!”
“God grant it may turn out so!” ejaculated Master Silas.
The youth, hearing these words, said unto him,—
“I fear, Master Silas, gentry like you often pray God to grant what he would rather not; and now and then what you would rather not.”
Sir Silas was wroth at this rudeness of speech about God in the face of a preacher, and said, reprovingly,—
“Out upon thy foul mouth, knave! upon which lie slaughter and venison.”
Whereupon did William Shakspeare sit mute awhile, and discomfited; then turning toward Sir Thomas, and looking and speaking as one submiss and contrite, he thus appealed unto him:—
“Worshipful sir! were there any signs of venison on my mouth, Master Silas could not for his life cry out upon it, nor help kissing it as ’twere a wench’s.”
Sir Thomas looked upon him with most lordly gravity and wisdom, and said unto him, in a voice that might have come from the bench:
“Youth, thou speakest irreverently;” and then unto Master Silas: “Silas! to the business on hand. Taste the fat upon yon boor’s table, which the constable hath brought hither, good Master Silas! And declare upon oath, being sworn in my presence, first, whether said fat do proceed of venison; secondly, whether said venison be of buck or doe.”
Whereupon the reverend Sir Silas did go incontinently, and did bend forward his head, shoulders, and body, and did severally taste four white solid substances upon an oaken board; said board being about two yards long, and one yard four inches wide,—found in, and brought thither from, the tenement or messuage of Andrew Haggit, who hath absconded. Of these four white solid substances, two were somewhat larger than a groat, and thicker; one about the size of King Henry the Eighth’s shilling, when our late sovereign lord of blessed memory was toward the lustiest; and the other, that is to say the middlemost, did resemble in some sort, a mushroom, not over fresh, turned upward on its stalk.
“And what sayest thou, Master Silas?” quoth the knight.
In reply whereunto Sir Silas thus averred:—
“Venison! o’ my conscience!
Buck! or burn me alive!
The three splashes in the circumference are verily and indeed venison; buck, moreover,—and Charlecote buck, upon my oath!”
Then carefully tasting the protuberance in the centre, he spat it out, crying,—
“Pho! pho! villain! villain!” and shaking his fist at the culprit.
Whereat the said culprit smiled and winked, and said off-hand,—
“Save thy spittle, Silas! It would supply a gaudy mess to the hungriest litter; but it would turn them from whelps into wolvets. ’T is pity to throw the best of thee away. Nothing comes out of thy mouth that is not savoury and solid, bating thy wit, thy sermons, and thy promises.”
It was my duty to write down the very words, irreverent as they are, being so commanded. More of the like, it is to be feared, would have ensued, but that Sir Thomas did check him, saying, shrewdly,—
“Young man! I perceive that if I do not stop thee in thy courses, thy name, being involved in thy company’s, may one day or other reach across the county; and folks may handle it and turn it about, as it deserveth, from Coleshill to Nuneaton, from Bromwicham to Brownsover. And who knoweth but that, years after thy death, the very house wherein thou wert born may be pointed at, and commented on, by knots of people, gentle and simple! What a shame for an honest man’s son! Thanks to me, who consider of measures to prevent it! Posterity shall laud and glorify me for plucking thee clean out of her head, and for picking up timely a ticklish skittle, that might overthrow with it a power of others just as light. I will rid the hundred of thee, with God’s blessing!—nay, the whole shire. We will have none such in our county; we justices are agreed upon it, and we will keep our word now and forevermore. Woe betide any that resembles thee in any part of him!”
Whereunto Sir Silas added,—
“We will dog him, and worry him, and haunt him, and bedevil him; and if ever he hear a comfortable word, it shall be in a language very different from his own.”
“As different as thine is from a Christian’s,” said the youth.
“Boy! thou art slow of apprehension,” said Sir Thomas, with much gravity; and taking up the cue, did rejoin,—
“Master Silas would impress upon thy ductile and tender mind the danger of evil doing; that we, in other words that justice is resolved to follow him up, even beyond his country, where he shall hear nothing better than the Italian or the Spanish, or the black language, or the language of Turk or Troubadour, or Tartar or Mongol. And, forsooth, for this gentle and indirect reproof, a gentleman in priest’s orders is told by a stripling that he lacketh Christianity! Who then shall give it?”
William Shakspeare.
“Who, indeed? when the founder of the feast leaveth an invited guest so empty! Yea, sir, the guest was invited, and the board was spread. The fruits that lay upon it be there still, and fresh as ever; and the bread of life in those capacious canisters is unconsumed and unbroken.”
Sir Silas (aside).
“The knave maketh me hungry with his mischievous similitudes.”
Sir Thomas.
“Thou hast aggravated thy offence, Wil Shakspeare! Irreverent caitiff! is this a discourse for my chaplain and clerk? Can he or the worthy scribe Ephraim (his worship was pleased to call me worthy) write down such words as those, about litter and wolvets, for the perusal and meditation of the grand jury? If the whole corporation of Stratford had not unanimously given it against thee, still his tongue would catch thee, as the evet catcheth a gnat. Know, sirrah, the reverend Sir Silas, albeit ill appointed for riding, and not over-fond of it, goeth to every house wherein is a venison feast for thirty miles round. Not a buck’s hoof on any stable-door but it awakeneth his recollections like a red letter.”
This wholesome reproof did bring the youth back again to his right senses; and then said he, with contrition, and with a wisdom beyond his years, and little to be expected from one who had spoken just before so unadvisedly and rashly,—
“Well do I know it, your worship! And verily do I believe that a bone of one being shovelled among the soil upon his coffin would forthwith quicken [8a] him. Sooth to say, there is ne’er a buckhound in the county but he treateth him as a godchild, patting him on the head, soothing his velvety ear between thumb and forefinger, ejecting tick from tenement, calling him ‘fine fellow,’ ‘noble lad,’ and giving him his blessing, as one dearer to him than a king’s debt to a debtor, [8b] or a bastard to a dad of eighty. This is the only kindness I ever heard of Master Silas toward his fellow-creatures. Never hold me unjust, Sir Knight, to Master Silas. Could I learn other good of him, I would freely say it; for we do good by speaking it, and none is easier. Even bad men are not bad men while they praise the just. Their first step backward is more troublesome and wrenching to them than the first forward.”
“In God’s name, where did he gather all this?” whispered his worship to the chaplain, by whose side I was sitting. “Why, he talks like a man of forty-seven, or more!”
“I doubt his sincerity, sir!” replied the chaplain. “His words are fairer now—”
“Devil choke him for them!” interjected he, with an undervoice.
“—and almost book-worthy; but out of place. What the scurvy cur yelped against me, I forgive him as a Christian. Murrain upon such varlet vermin! It is but of late years that dignities have come to be reviled. The other parts of the Gospel were broken long before,—this was left us; and now this likewise is to be kicked out of doors, amid the mutterings of such mooncalves as him yonder.”
“Too true, Silas!” said the knight, sighing deeply. “Things are not as they were in our glorious wars of York and Lancaster. The knaves were thinned then,—two or three crops a year of that rank squitch-grass which it has become the fashion of late to call the people. There was some difference then between buff doublets and iron mail, and the rogues felt it. Well-a-day! we must bear what God willeth, and never repine, although it gives a man the heart-ache. We are bound in duty to keep these things for the closet, and to tell God of them only when we call upon his holy name, and have him quite by ourselves.”
Sir Silas looked discontented and impatient, and said, snappishly,—
“Cast we off here, or we shall be at fault. Start him, sir!—prithee, start him.”
Again his worship, Sir Thomas, did look gravely and grandly, and taking a scrap of paper out of the Holy Book then lying before him, did read distinctly these words:—
“Providence hath sent Master Silas back hither, this morning, to confound thee in thy guilt.”
Again, with all the courage and composure of an innocent man, and indeed with more than what an innocent man ought to possess in the presence of a magistrate, the youngster said, pointing toward Master Silas,—
“The first moment he ventureth to lift up his visage from the table, hath Providence marked him miraculously. I have heard of black malice. How many of our words have more in them than we think of! Give a countryman a plough of silver, and he will plough with it all the season, and never know its substance. ’T is thus with our daily speech. What riches lie hidden in the vulgar tongue of the poorest and most ignorant! What flowers of Paradise lie under our feet, with their beauties and parts undistinguished and undiscerned, from having been daily trodden on! O, sir, look you!—but let me cover my eyes! Look at his lips! Gracious Heaven! they were not thus when he entered. They are blacker now than Harry Tewe’s bull-bitch’s!”
Master Silas did lift up his eyes in astonishment and wrath; and his worship, Sir Thomas, did open his wider and wider, and cried by fits and starts:—
“Gramercy! true enough! nay, afore God, too true by half! I never saw the like! Who would believe it? I wish I were fairly rid of this examination,—my hands washed clean thereof! Another time,—anon! We have our quarterly sessions; we are many together. At present I remand—”
And now, indeed, unless Sir Silas had taken his worship by the sleeve, he would may-hap have remanded the lad. But Sir Silas, still holding the sleeve and shaking it, said, hurriedly,—
“Let me entreat your worship to ponder. What black does the fellow talk of? My blood and bile rose up against the rogue; but surely I did not turn black in the face, or in the mouth, as the fellow calls it?”
Whether Master Silas had some suspicion and inkling of the cause or not, he rubbed his right hand along his face and lips, and, looking upon it, cried aloud,—
“Ho, ho! is it off? There is some upon my finger’s end, I find. Now I have it,—ay, there it is. That large splash upon the centre of the table is tallow, by my salvation! The profligates sat up until the candle burned out, and the last of it ran through the socket upon the board. We knew it before. I did convey into my mouth both fat and smut!”
“Many of your cloth and kidney do that, good Master Silas, and make no wry faces about it,” quoth the youngster, with indiscreet merriment, although short of laughter, as became him who had already stepped too far and reached the mire.
To save paper and time, I shall now, for the most part, write only what they all said, not saying that they said it, and just copying out in my clearest hand what fell respectively from their mouths.
Sir Silas.
“I did indeed spit it forth, and emunge my lips, as who should not?”
William Shakspeare.
“Would it were so!”
Sir Silas.
“Would it were so! in thy teeth, hypocrite!”
Sir Thomas.
“And, truly, I likewise do incline to hope and credit it, as thus paraphrased and expounded.”
William Shakspeare.
“Wait until this blessed day next year, sir, at the same hour. You shall see it forth again at its due season; it would be no miracle if it lasted. Spittle may cure sore eyes, but not blasted mouths and scald consciences.”
Sir Thomas.
“Why! who taught thee all this?”
Then turned he leisurely toward Sir Silas, and placing his hand outspreaden upon the arm of the chaplain, said unto him in a low, judicial, hollow voice,—
“Every word true and solemn! I have heard less wise saws from between black covers.”
Sir Silas was indignant at this under-rating, as he appeared to think it, of the church and its ministry, and answered impatiently, with Christian freedom,—
“Your worship surely will not listen to this wild wizard in his brothel-pulpit!”
William Shakspeare.
“Do I live to hear Charlecote Hall called a brothel-pulpit? Alas, then, I have lived too long!”
Sir Silas.
“We will try to amend that for thee.”
William seemed not to hear him, loudly as he spake and pointedly unto the youngster, who wiped his eyes, crying,—
“Commit me, sir! in mercy commit me! Master Ephraim! Oh, Master Ephraim! A guiltless man may feel all the pangs of the guilty! Is it you who are to make out the commitment? Dispatch! dispatch. I am a-weary of my life. If I dared to lie, I would plead guilty.”
Sir Thomas.
“Heyday! No wonder, Master Ephraim, thy entrails are moved and wamble. Dost weep, lad? Nay, nay; thou bearest up bravely. Silas, I now find, although the example come before me from humble life, that what my mother said was true—’t was upon my father’s demise—‘In great grief there are few tears.’”
Upon which did the youth, Willy Shakspeare, jog himself by the memory, and repeat these short verses, not wide from the same purport:
“There are, alas, some depths of woe
Too vast for tears to overflow.”
Sir Thomas.
“Let those who are sadly vexed in spirit mind that notion, whoever indited it, and be men. I always was; but some little griefs have pinched me woundily.”
Master Silas grew impatient, for he had ridden hard that morning, and had no cushion upon his seat, as Sir Thomas had. I have seen in my time that he who is seated on beech-wood hath very different thoughts and moralities from him who is seated on goose-feathers under doe-skin. But that is neither here nor there, albeit, an’ I die, as I must, my heirs, Judith and her boy Elijah, may note it.
Master Silas, as above, looked sourishly, and cried aloud,—
“The witnesses! the witnesses! testimony! testimony! We shall now see whose black goes deepest. There is a fork to be had that can hold the slipperiest eel, and a finger that can strip the slimiest. I cry your worship to the witnesses.”
Sir Thomas.
“Ay, indeed, we are losing the day; it wastes toward noon, and nothing done. Call the witnesses. How are they called by name? Give me the paper.”
The paper being forthwith delivered into his worship’s hand by the learned clerk, his worship did read aloud the name of Euseby Treen. Whereupon did Euseby Treen come forth through the great hall-door which was ajar, and answer most audibly,—
“Your worship!”
Straightway did Sir Thomas read aloud, in like form and manner, the name of Joseph Carnaby; and in like manner as aforesaid did Joseph Carnaby make answer and say,—
“Your worship!”
Lastly did Sir Thomas turn the light of his countenance on William Shakspeare, saying,—
“Thou seest these good men deponents against thee, William Shakspeare.” And then did Sir Thomas pause. And pending this pause did William Shakspeare look steadfastly in the faces of both; and stroking down his own with the hollow of his hand from the jaw-bone to the chin-point, said unto his honour,—
“Faith! it would give me much pleasure, and the neighbourhood much vantage, to see these two fellows good men. Joseph Carnaby and Euseby Treen! Why! your worship! they know every hare’s form in Luddington-field better than their own beds, and as well pretty nigh as any wench’s in the parish.”
Then turned he with jocular scoff unto Joseph Carnaby, thus accosting him, whom his shirt, being made stiffer than usual for the occasion, rubbed and frayed,—
“Ay, Joseph! smoothen and soothe thy collar-piece again and again! Hark ye! I know what smock that was knavishly cut from.”
Master Silas rose up in high choler, and said unto Sir Thomas,—
“Sir! do not listen to that lewd reviler; I wager ten groats I prove him to be wrong in his scent. Joseph Carnaby is righteous and discreet.”
William Shakspeare.
“By daylight and before the parson. Bears and boars are tame creatures, and discreet, in the sunshine and after dinner.”
Euseby Treen.
“I do know his down-goings and uprisings.”
William Shakspeare.
“The man and his wife are one, saith holy Scripture.”
Euseby Treen.
“A sober-paced and rigid man, if such there be. Few keep Lent like unto him.”
William Shakspeare.
“I warrant him, both lent and stolen.”
Sir Thomas.
“Peace and silence! Now, Joseph Carnaby, do thou depose on particulars.”
Joseph Carnaby.
“May it please your worship! I was returning from Hampton upon Allhallowmas eve, between the hours of ten and eleven at night, in company with Master Euseby Treen; and when we came to the bottom of Mickle Meadow, we heard several men in discourse. I plucked Euseby Treen by the doublet, and whispered in his ear, ‘Euseby! Euseby! let us slink along in the shadow of the elms and willows.’”
Euseby Treen.
“Willows and elm-trees were the words.”
William Shakspeare.
“See, your worship! what discordances! They cannot agree in their own story.”
Sir Silas.
“The same thing, the same thing, in the main.”
William Shakspeare.
“By less differences than this estates have been lost, hearts broken, and England, our country, filled with homeless, helpless, destitute orphans. I protest against it.”
Sir Silas.
“Protest, indeed! He talks as if he were a member of the House of Lords. They alone can protest.”
Sir Thomas.
“Your attorney may object, not protest, before the lord judge.
“Proceed you, Joseph Carnaby.”
Joseph Carnaby.
“In the shadow of the willows and elm-trees, then—”
William Shakspeare.
“No hints, no conspiracies! Keep to your own story, man, and do not borrow his.”
Sir Silas.
“I overrule the objection. Nothing can be more futile and frivolous.”
William Shakspeare.
“So learned a magistrate as your worship will surely do me justice by hearing me attentively. I am young; nevertheless, having more than one year written in the office of an attorney, and having heard and listened to many discourses and questions on law, I cannot but remember the heavy fine inflicted on a gentleman of this county who committed a poor man to prison for being in possession of a hare, it being proved that the hare was in his possession, and not he in the hare’s.”
Sir Silas.
“Synonymous term! synonymous term!”
Sir Thomas.
“In what term sayest thou was it? I do not remember the case.”
Sir Silas.
“Mere quibble mere equivocation! Jesuitical! Jesuitical!”
William Shakspeare.
“It would be Jesuitical, Sir Silas, if it dragged the law by its perversions to the side of oppression and cruelty. The order of Jesuits, I fear, is as numerous as its tenets are lax and comprehensive. I am sorry to see their frocks flounced with English serge.”
Sir Silas.
“I don’t understand thee, viper!”
Sir Thomas.
“Cease thou, Will Shakspeare! Know thy place. And do thou, Joseph Carnaby, take up again the thread of thy testimony.”
Joseph Carnaby.
“We were still at some distance from the party, when on a sudden Euseby hung an —” [21a]
Sir Thomas.
“As well write drew back, Master Ephraim and Master Silas! Be circumspecter in speech, Master Joseph Carnaby! I did not look for such rude phrases from that starch-warehouse under thy chin. Continue, man!”
Joseph Carnaby.
“‘Euseby,’ said I in his ear, ‘what ails thee, Euseby?’ ‘I wag no farther,’ quoth he. ‘What a number of names and voices!’”
Sir Thomas.
“Dreadful gang! a number of names and voices! Had it been any other day in the year but Allhallowmas eve! To steal a buck upon such a day! Well! God may pardon even that. Go on, go on. But the laws of our country must have their satisfaction and atonement. Were it upon any other day in the calendar less holy, the buck were nothing, or next to nothing, saving the law and our conscience and our good report. Yet we, her Majesty’s justices, must stand in the gap, body and soul, against evil-doers. Now do thou, in furtherance of this business, give thine aid unto us, Joseph Carnaby!—remembering that mine eye from this judgment-seat, and her Majesty’s bright and glorious one overlooking the whole realm, and the broader of God above, are upon thee.”
Carnaby did quail a matter at these words about the judgment-seat and the broad eye, aptly and gravely delivered by him moreover who hath to administer truth and righteousness in our ancient and venerable laws, and especially, at the present juncture, in those against park-breaking and deer-stealing. But finally, nought discomfited, and putting his hand valiantly atwixt hip and midriff, so that his elbow well-nigh touched the taller pen in the ink-pot, he went on.
Joseph Carnaby.
“‘In the shadow of the willows and elm-trees,’ said he, ‘and get nearer.’ We were still at some distance, maybe a score of furlongs, from the party—”
Sir Thomas.
“Thou hast said it already—all save the score of furlongs.”
“Hast room for them, Master Silas?”
“Yea,” quoth Master Silas, “and would make room for fifty, to let the fellow swing at his ease.”
Sir Thomas.
“Hast room, Master Ephraim?”
“’T is done, most worshipful!” said I. The learned knight did not recollect that I could put fifty furlongs in a needle’s eye, give me pen fine enough.
But far be it from me to vaunt of my penmanship, although there be those who do malign it, even in my own township and parish; yet they never have unperched me from my calling, and have had hard work to take an idle wench or two from under me on Saturday nights.
I memorize thus much, not out of any malice or any soreness about me, but that those of my kindred into whose hands it please God these papers do fall hereafter, may bear up stoutly in such straits; and if they be good at the cudgel, that they, looking first at their man, do give it him heartily and unsparingly, keeping within law.
Sir Thomas, having overlooked what we had written, and meditated a while thereupon, said unto Joseph,—
“It appeareth by thy testimony that there was a huge and desperate gang of them afoot. Revengeful dogs! it is difficult to deal with them. The laws forbid precipitancy and violence. A dozen or two may return and harm me; not me, indeed, but my tenants and servants. I would fain act with prudence, and like unto him who looketh abroad. He must tie his shoe tightly who passeth through mire; he must step softly who steppeth over stones; he must walk in the fear of the Lord (which, without a brag, I do at this present feel upon me), who hopeth to reach the end of the straightest road in safety.”
Sir Silas.
“Tut, tut! your worship! Her Majesty’s deputy hath matchlocks and halters at a knight’s disposal, or the world were topsyturvy indeed.”
Sir Thomas.
“My mental ejaculations, and an influx of grace thereupon, have shaken and washed from my brain all thy last words, good Joseph! Thy companion here, Euseby Treen, said unto thee—ay—”
Joseph Carnaby.
“Said unto me, ‘What a number of names and voices! And there be but three living men in all! And look again! Christ deliver us! all the shadows save one go leftward; that one lieth right upon the river. It seemeth a big, squat monster, shaking a little, as one ready to spring upon its prey!’”
Sir Thomas.
“A dead man in his last agonies, no doubt! Your deer-stealer doth boggle at nothing. He hath alway the knife in doublet and the devil at elbow.
“I wot not of any keeper killed or missing. To lose one’s deer and keeper too were overmuch.
“Do, in God’s merciful name, hand unto me a glass of sack, Master Silas! I wax faintish at the big, squat man. He hath harmed not only me, but mine. Furthermore, the examination is grown so long.”
Then was the wine delivered by Sir Silas into the hand of his worship, who drank it off in a beaker of about half a pint,—but little to his satisfaction, for he said shortly afterward,—
“Hast thou poured no water into the sack, good Master Silas? It seemeth weaker and washier than ordinary, and affordeth small comfort unto the breast and stomach.”
“Not I, truly, sir,” replied Master Silas “and the bottle is a fresh and sound one. The cork reported on drawing, as the best diver doth on sousing from Warwick bridge into Avon. A rare cork! as bright as the glass bottle, and as smooth as the lips of any cow.”
Sir Thomas.
“My mouth is out of taste this morning; or the same wine, mayhap, hath a different force and flavor in the dining-room and among friends. But to business—what more?”
“Euseby Treen, what may it be?” said I.
“I know,” quoth he, “but dare not breathe it.”
Sir Thomas.
“I thought I had taken a glass of wine, verily. Attention to my duty as a magistrate is paramount. I mind nothing else when that lies before me.
“Carnaby! I credit thy honesty, but doubt thy manhood. Why not breathe it, with a vengeance?”
Joseph Carnaby.
“It was Euseby who dared not.”
Sir Thomas.
“Stand still! Say nothing yet; mind my orders. Fair and softly! compose thyself.”
They all stood silent for some time, and looked very composed, awaiting the commands of the knight. His mind was clearly in such a state of devotion that peradventure he might not have descended for a while longer to his mundane duties, had not Master Silas told him that, under the shadow of his wing, their courage had returned and they were quite composed again.
“You may proceed,” said the knight.
Joseph Carnaby.
“Master Treen did take off his cap and wipe his forehead. I, for the sake of comforting him in this his heaviness, placed my hand upon his crown; and truly I might have taken it for a tuft of bents, the hair on end, the skin immovable as God’s earth!”
Sir Thomas, hearing these words, lifted up his hands above his own head, and in the loudest voice he had yet uttered did he cry,—
“Wonderful are thy ways in Israel, O Lord!”
So saying, the pious knight did strike his knee with the palm of his right hand; and then gave he a sign, bowing his head and closing his eyes, by which Master Carnaby did think he signified his pleasure that he should go on deposing. And he went on thus:—
Joseph Carnaby.
“At this moment one of the accomplices cried, ‘Willy! Willy! prithee stop! enough in all conscience! First thou divertedst us from our undertaking with thy strange vagaries, thy Italian girls’ nursery sigh, thy Pucks and pinchings, and thy Windsor whimsies. No kitten upon a bed of marum ever played such antics. It was summer and winter, night and day with us within the hour; and in such religion did we think and feel it, we would have broken the man’s jaw who gainsaid it. We have slept with thee under the oaks in the ancient forest of Arden, and we have wakened from our sleep in the tempest far at sea. [29a] Now art thou for frightening us again out of all the senses thou hadst given us, with witches and women more murderous than they.’
“Then followed a deeper voice: ‘Stouter men and more resolute are few; but thou, my lad, hast words too weighty for flesh and bones to bear up against. And who knows but these creatures may pop amongst us at last, as the wolf did, sure enough, upon him, the noisy rogue, who so long had been crying wolf! and wolf!’”
Sir Thomas.
“Well spoken, for two thieves; albeit I miss the meaning of the most part. Did they prevail with the scapegrace and stop him?”
Joseph Carnaby.
“The last who had spoken did slap him on the shoulder, saying, ‘Jump into the punt, lad, and across.’ Thereupon did Will Shakspeare jump into said punt, and begin to sing a song about a mermaid.”
William Shakspeare.
“Sir! is this credible? I will be sworn I never saw one; and verily do believe that scarcely one in a hundred years doth venture so far up the Avon.”
Sir Thomas.
“There is something in this. Thou mayest have sung about one, nevertheless. Young poets take great liberties with all female kind; not that mermaids are such very unlawful game for them, and there be songs even about worse and staler fish. Mind ye that! Thou hast written songs, and hast sung them, and lewd enough they be, God wot!”
William Shakspeare.
“Pardon me, your worship! they were not mine then. Peradventure the song about the mermaid may have been that ancient one which every boy in most parishes has been singing for many years, and, perhaps, his father before him; and somebody was singing it then, mayhap, to keep up his courage in the night.”
Sir Thomas.
“I never heard it.”
William Shakspeare.
“Nobody would dare to sing in the presence of your worship, unless commanded,—not even the mermaid herself.”
Sir Thomas.
“Canst thou sing it?”
William Shakspeare.
“Verily, I can sing nothing.”
Sir Thomas.
“Canst thou repeat it from memory?”
William Shakspeare.
“It is so long since I have thought about it, that I may fail in the attempt.”
Sir Thomas.
“Try, however.”
William Shakspeare.
“‘The mermaid sat upon the rocks
All day long,
Admiring her beauty and combing her locks,
And singing a mermaid song.’”
Sir Thomas.
“What was it? what was it? I thought as much. There thou standest, like a woodpecker, chattering and chattering, breaking the bark with thy beak, and leaving the grub where it was. This is enough to put a saint out of patience.”
William Shakspeare.
“The wishes of your worship possess a mysterious influence,—I now remember all.
“‘And hear the mermaid’s song you may,
As sure as sure can be,
If you will but follow the sun all day,
And souse with him into the sea.’”
Sir Thomas.
“It must be an idle fellow who would take that trouble; besides, unless he nicked the time he might miss the monster. There be many who are slow to believe that the mermaid singeth.”
William Shakspeare.
“Ah sir! not only the mermaid singeth, but the merman sweareth, as another old song will convince you.”
Sir Thomas.
“I would fain be convinced of God’s wonders in the great deeps, and would lean upon the weakest reed like unto thee to manifest his glory. Thou mayest convince me.”
William Shakspeare.
1.
“‘A wonderful story, my lasses and lads,
Peradventure you’ve heard from your grannams or dads,
Of a merman that came every night to woo
The spinster of spinsters, our Catherine Crewe.
2.
“‘But Catherine Crewe
Is now seventy-two,
And avers she hath half forgotten
The truth of the tale, when you ask her about it,
And says, as if fain to deny it or flout it,
“Pooh! the merman is dead and rotten.”
3.
“‘The merman came up as the mermen are wont,
To the top of the water, and then swam upon ’t;
And Catherine saw him with both her two eyes,
A lusty young merman full six feet in size.
4.
“‘And Catherine was frighten’d,
Her scalp-skin it tighten’d,
And her head it swam strangely, although on dry land;
And the merman made bold
Eftsoons to lay hold
(This Catherine well recollects) of her hand.
5.
“‘But how could a merman, if ever so good,
Or if ever so clever, be well understood
By a simple young creature of our flesh and blood?
6.
“‘Some tell us the merman
Can only speak German,
In a voice between grunting and snoring;
But Catherine says he had learned in the wars
The language, persuasions, and oaths of our tars,
And that even his voice was not foreign.
7.
“‘Yet when she was asked how he managed to hide
The green fishy tail, coming out of the tide
For night after night above twenty,
“You troublesome creatures!” old Catherine replied,
“In his pocket; won’t that now content ye?”’”
Sir Thomas.
“I have my doubts yet. I should have said unto her, seriously, ‘Kate! Kate! I am not convinced.’ There may be witchcraft or sortilege in it. I would have made it a star-chamber matter.”
William Shakspeare.
“It was one, sir.”
Sir Thomas.
“And now I am reminded by this silly, childish song,—which, after all, is not the true mermaid’s,—thou didst tell me, Silas, that the papers found in the lad’s pocket were intended for poetry.”
Sir Silas.
“I wish he had missed his aim, sir, in your park, as he hath missed it in his poetry. The papers are not worth reading; they do not go against him in the point at issue.”
Sir Thomas.
“We must see that,—they being taken upon his person when apprehended.”
Sir Silas.
“Let Ephraim read them, then; it behooveth not me, a Master of Arts, to con a whelp’s whining.”
Sir Thomas.
“Do thou read them aloud unto us, good Master Ephraim.”
Whereupon I took the papers which young Willy had not bestowed much pains on; and they posed and puzzled me grievously, for they were blotted and scrawled in many places, as if somebody had put him out. These likewise I thought fit, after long consideration, to write better, and preserve, great as the loss of time is when men of business take in hand such unseemly matters. However, they are decenter than most, and not without their moral; for example:—
“TO THE OWLET.
“Who, O thou sapient, saintly bird!
Thy shouted warnings ever heard
Unbleached by fear?
The blue-faced blubbering imp, who steals
Yon turnips, thinks thee at his heels,
Afar or near.
“The brawnier churl, who brags at times
To front and top the rankest crimes,—
To paunch a deer,
Quarter a priest, or squeeze a wench,—
Scuds from thee, clammy as a tench,
He knows not where.
“For this the righteous Lord of all
Consigns to thee the castle-wall,
When, many a year,
Closed in the chancel-vaults, are eyes
Rainy or sunny at the sighs
Of knight or peer.”
Sir Thomas, when I had ended, said unto me,
“No harm herein; but are they over?”
I replied, “Yea, sir!”
“I miss the posy,” quoth he; “there is usually a lump of sugar, or a smack thereof at the bottom of the glass. They who are inexperienced in poetry do write it as boys do their copies in the copy-book, without a flourish at the finis. It is only the master who can do this befittingly.”
I bowed unto his worship reverentially, thinking of a surety he meant me, and returned my best thanks in set language. But his worship rebuffed them, and told me graciously that he had an eye on another of very different quality; that the plain sense of his discourse might do for me, the subtler was certainly for himself. He added that in his younger days he had heard from a person of great parts, and had since profited by it, that ordinary poets are like adders,—the tail blunt and the body rough, and the whole reptile cold-blooded and sluggish: “whereas we,” he subjoined, “leap and caracole and curvet, and are as warm as velvet, and as sleek as satin, and as perfumed as a Naples fan, in every part of us; and the end of our poems is as pointed as a perch’s back-fin, and it requires as much nicety to pick it up as a needle[38a] at nine groats the hundred.”
Then turning toward the culprit, he said mildly unto him,—
“Now why canst thou not apply thyself unto study? Why canst thou not ask advice of thy superiors in rank and wisdom? In a few years, under good discipline, thou mightest rise from the owlet unto the peacock. I know not what pleasant things might not come into the youthful head thereupon.
“He was the bird of Venus, [39b] goddess of beauty. He flew down (I speak as a poet, and not in my quality of knight and Christian) with half the stars of heaven upon his tail; and his long, blue neck doth verily appear a dainty slice out of the solid sky.”
Sir Silas smote me with his elbow, and said in my ear,—
“He wanteth not this stuffing; he beats a pheasant out of the kitchen, to my mind, take him only at the pheasant’s size, and don’t (upon your life) overdo him.
“Never be cast down in spirit, nor take it too ‘grievously to heart, if the colour be a suspicion of the pinkish,—no sign of rawness in that; none whatever. It is as becoming to him as to the salmon; it is as natural to your pea-chick in his best cookery, as it is to the finest October morning,—moist underfoot, when partridge’s and puss’s and renard’s scent lies sweetly.”
Willie Shakspeare, in the mean time, lifted up his hands above his ears half a cubit, and taking breath again, said, audibly, although he willed it to be said unto himself alone,—
“O that knights could deign to be our teachers! Methinks I should briefly spring up into heaven, through the very chink out of which the peacock took his neck.”
Master Silas, who like myself and the worshipful knight, did overhear him, said angrily,—
“To spring up into heaven, my lad, it would be as well to have at least one foot upon the ground to make the spring withal. I doubt whether we shall leave thee this vantage.”
“Nay, nay! thou art hard upon him, Silas,” said the knight.
I was turning over the other papers taken from the pocket of the culprit on his apprehension, and had fixed my eyes on one, when Sir Thomas caught them thus occupied, and exclaimed,—
“Mercy upon us! have we more?”
“Your patience, worshipful sir!” said I; “must I forward?”
“Yea, yea,” quoth he, resignedly, “we must go through; we are pilgrims in this life.”
Then did I read, in a clear voice, the contents of paper the second, being as followeth:—
“THE MAID’S LAMENT.
“I loved him not; and yet, now he is gone,
I feel I am alone.
I check’d him while he spoke; yet, could he speak,
Alas! I would not check.
For reasons not to love him once I sought,
And wearied all my thought
To vex myself and him: I now would give
My love could he but live
Who lately lived for me, and when he found
’T was vain, in holy ground
He hid his face amid the shades of death!
I waste for him my breath
Who wasted his for me! but mine returns,
And this loin bosom burns
With stifling heat, heaving it up in sleep,
And waking me to weep
Tears that had melted his soft heart. For years
Wept he as bitter tears!
Merciful God! such was his latest prayer, These may she never share! Quieter is his breath, his breast more cold, Than daisies in the mould, Where children spell, athwart the churchyard gate, His name and life’s brief date. Pray for him, gentle souls, whoe’er you be, And, oh! pray too for me!”
Sir Thomas had fallen into a most comfortable and refreshing slumber ere this lecture was concluded; but the pause broke it, as there be many who experience after the evening service in our parish-church. Howbeit, he had presently all his wits about him, and remembered well that he had been carefully counting the syllables, about the time when I had pierced as far as into the middle.
“Young man,” said he to Willy, “thou givest short measure in every other sack of the load. Thy uppermost stake is of right length; the undermost falleth off, methinks.
“Master Ephraim, canst thou count syllables? I mean no offence. I may have counted wrongfully myself, not being born nor educated for an accountant.”
At such order I did count; and truly the suspicion was as just as if he had neither been a knight nor a sleeper.
“Sad stuff! sad stuff, indeed!” said Master Silas, “and smelling of popery and wax-candles.”
“Ay?” said Sir Thomas, “I must sift that.”
“If praying for the dead is not popery,” said Master Silas, “I know not what the devil is. Let them pray for us; they may know whether it will do us any good. We need not pray for them; we cannot tell whether it will do them any. I call this sound divinity.”
“Are our churchmen all agreed thereupon?” asked Sir Thomas.
“The wisest are,” replied Master Silas.
“There are some lank rascals who will never agree upon anything but upon doubting. I would not give ninepence for the best gown upon the most thrifty of ’em; and their fingers are as stiff and hard with their pedlary, knavish writing, as any bishop’s are with chalk-stones won honestly from the gout.”
Sir Thomas took the paper up from the table on which I had laid it, and said after a while,—
“The man may only have swooned. I scorn to play the critic, or to ask any one the meaning of a word; but, sirrah!”
Here he turned in his chair from the side of Master Silas, and said unto Willy,—
“William Shakspeare! out of this thraldom in regard to popery, I hope, by God’s blessing, to deliver thee. If ever thou repeatest the said verses, knowing the man to be to all intents and purposes a dead man, prythee read the censurable line as thus corrected,—
‘Pray for our Virgin Queen, gentles! whoe’er you be.’
although it is not quite the thing that another should impinge so closely on her skirts.
“By this improvement, of me suggested, thou mayest make some amends—a syllable or two—for the many that are weighed in the balance and are found wanting.”
Then turning unto me, as being conversant by my profession in such matters, and the same being not very worthy of learned and staid clerks the like of Master Silas, he said,—
“Of all the youths that did ever write in verse, this one verily is he who hath the fewest flowers and devices. But it would be loss of time to form a border, in the fashion of a kingly crown, or a dragon, or a Turk on horseback, out of buttercups and dandelions.
