Arthur Quiller-Couch

“ She'd have done it, too, if he'd met her in the ordinary way: but when, after searching the house, she looked into the little back workshop and spied him seated on the bench there, cross-legged and solemn as an idol, stitching away at a waistcoat, she couldn't hold back a grin.
"Why, whatever's the matter with you?" she asked.
"Work," says he, in a hollow voice. "Work is the matter. I can't see a house—and one that used to be a happy home—go to rack and ruin without some effort to prevent it."
"I wouldn't begin on Regatta Day, if I was you," says Sal cheerfully. ”

“ Well, Sir, they tried ship after ship, the blessed night through, till hope was nigh dead in them, and their bodies ached with weariness and hunger. Long before they reached Devil's Point the tumble had upset Hancock's stomach completely. He had lost his oar; somehow it slipped off between the thole-pins, and in his weakness he forgot to cry out that 'twas gone. It drifted away in the dark—the night all round was black as your hat, the squalls hiding the stars—and he dropped off his thwart upon the bottom-boards. "I'm a dying man," he groaned, "and I don't care. ”

“ Brush thine eyes, lad: we be all players here—or women—and know the trade."
It hurt. If Heminge's eyes had begun to water sentimentally, they flinched now with real pain. This man loved Shakespeare with a dog's love. He blinked, and a drop fell and rested on the back of his hand as it fingered the base of his wine-glass. The apprentice saw and noted it.
"And another glass, lads, to the Phœnix that shall arise! A toast, and this time not in silence!" shouted John Shakespeare, springing up, flask in one hand and glass in the other. ”

“ Take away Bankside, and London would be the cleaner of much wickedness: yet by how much the duller of cheer, the poorer in all that colour, that movement which together be to cities the spirit of life! Where would be gone that glee of her that lifts a man's lungs and swells his port when his feet feel London stones? Is't of her money the country nurses think when to wondering children they fable of streets all paved with gold? Nay, lad: and this your decent, virtuous folk know well enough—your clergy, your aldermen—and use the poor players while abusing them. ”

“ Youth flies, ay de mi! But youth also, as I perceive to-night, repeats itself; and Luisa—who was always circumspect, though a conspirator—apparently repeats herself too."
"Luisa? What do you know of Luisa?" stammered the younger man. The name seemed to have fallen on him like the touch of an enchanter's wand, stiffening him to stone. Like a statue he stood there, peering forward with a white face.
"My friend"—Fuentes turned to me—"be so good as to unstrap the case yonder and hand me my guitar." ”

“ Has Dick Burbage called out the train-bands to help him? Why, hullo, Dick! What means——" The newcomer's eyes, round with wonder as they rested a moment on Burbage, grew rounder yet as they travelled past him to the countryman. "Father?" he stammered, incredulous.
"Good evening, Will! Give ye good evening, my son! Set down that lantern and embrace me, like a good boy: a good boy, albeit a man of fame. Didst not see me, then, in the theatre this afternoon? Yet was I to the fore there, methinks, and proud to be called John Shakespeare." ”

“ Sure enough there was, and it broke over the Hamoaze with a bang just as Captain Bligh and his friend put across in the ferry-boat. The lightning whizzed and the rain came down like the floods of Deva, and in five minutes' time the streets and gutters of Torpoint were pouring on to the quay like so many shutes, and turning all the inshore water to the colour of pea-soup. Another twenty minutes and 'twas over; blue sky above and the birds singing, and the roof and trees all a-twinkle in the sun ”

“ For an instant there flashed across her brain an incredible surmise—that he was her husband, Sebastian: for he wore a soldier's overcoat and shako, and carried a musket and knapsack. But no: this man was taller than Sebastian by many inches; taller and thinner.
He was a soldier, then: and to Mercedes all soldiers were by this time incarnate devils—or all but one, and that one a plucky little British officer who had snatched her from his men just as she fell swooning into their clutches, and had dragged and thrust her through the convent doorway at Nogales and slammed the door upon her ”

“ Its rays wavered on his own face, which was young but extraordinarily haggard, and on the piles of timber between and over which he picked his way—timbers heaped pell-mell in the slush of the yard or stacked against the boundary wall, some daubed with paint, others gilded wholly or in part, and twinkling as the lantern swung. "Dick Burbage already? Has it miscarried, then?"
"Miscarried? What in the world was there to miscarry? I tell thee, Tom—but where be the others?"
The frail man jerked a thumb at the darkness behind his shoulder. "Hark to them, back yonder, stacking the beams! ”

“ I have lived through the bitterness of death; I have seen the end of things. The last Carminowe goes down the blind way of fate—goes out in obloquy to-morrow, hanged for a spy by mistake. I have finished my quarrel with the gods: they are strong, and I make no complaint that they choose to wind up with a jest. I do assure you, Sirs, that I neither fear death nor disdain any way of it."
But here Jack Trecarrel, that had been staring gloomily at the wall opposite, suddenly rubbed his eyes and sat up with a laugh. ”

“ London, thou art the flower of cities all!
—Eh, lad?"
The sun's gold, drifted through the fog, touched the side of a small row-boat nearing the farther shore. Behind, and to right and left along Bankside, a few guitars yet tinkled. Across the tide came wafted the voices of London's Christmas bells. ”

“ In a deep armchair beside the fireplace sat a stiff-backed, middle-aged woman in black—a duenna evidently—who regarded us with eyes like large black beads, but did not interrupt her knitting. In the corner behind the door stood a bed, with a crucifix above it: and on the bed, between two crates, the one of them heaped with flowers, sat a young woman dangling a pretty pair of feet and smoking a cigarette while she made up a posy.
In spite of their masks one could tell that all the men were young—mere lads, indeed. And if this were Luisa, Fuentes had slandered her sorely. ”

“ Bligh had pulled all awry in his temper. "And the window open too!"
"And—hulloa!" says my grandfather, staring across the patch of turf outside. "Surely here's signs of a violent struggle. Human, by the look of it," says he, picking up a thigh-bone and holding it out towards Mrs. Polwhele.
She began to shake like a leaf. "Oh, Calvin!" she gasps out. "Oh, Calvin, not in this short time—it couldn't be!"
"Charred, too," says my grandfather, inspecting it: and with that they turned at a cry from Martha the cook, that was down on hands and knees upon the carpet. ”

“ This here round Roman camp——"
"But I tell you, once more, there's no such thing!" cried the Parson, stamping his foot. "The Romans never made a round camp in their lives. Little Dinnis is British; the encampment's British; the mound, as you call it, is a British barrow; and as for you——"
"As for me," thunders Bligh, "I'm British too, and don't you forget it. Confound you, Sir! What the devil do I care for your pettifogging bones? I'm a British sailor, Sir; I come to your God-forsaken parish on a Government job, and I happen on a whole shopful of ancient remains. ”

“ His terror for the fate of the family was not acute. Old age had dulled his faculties, and he dozed by the fire with sudden starts of wakefulness, blinking his smoke-sored eyes and gazing with a vague sense of evil on the straw beds and the image in the alcove. His thoughts ran on the swine and the price to be paid for them by the Englishman: they faded into dreams wherein the family saints stepped down from their shrine and chaffered with the foreign paymaster; dreams in which he found himself grasping silver dollars with both hands. ”

“ Darkness overtook us as we climbed down the slopes: but we pushed on, Fuentes leading the way boldly. Evidently he had come to familiar ground. But it was midnight before he brought me, by an abominable road, to a farmstead the walls of which showed themselves ruinous even in the starlight—for moon there was none. At an angle of the building, which once upon a time had been whitewashed, rose a solid tower, with a doorway and an iron-studded door, and a narrow window overlooking it. ”

“ You have no eyes for the present, and with the past you poison its living joy. We women cannot be always seventeen: yet because we are not, you kill us—you kill us, I say!" Then, while I stared at her in downright amaze, "Go, dress!" she cried, thrusting me into the room. "In your coat you will find two letters. That without address you will give to Don Eugenio when you find him: that which is marked with a cross you will hand to him when you shall have passed the bridge—on no account before. ”

“ The cutpurse had slipped away, and the countryman and apprentice found themselves side by side waiting while the gallery dissolved its crowd into the fog.
"A brisk fellow," remarked the one, nodding at the vacant seat as he stowed away his handkerchief. "But why should he guess me a rustic?"
"The fellow has no discernment," the apprentice answered dryly. "He even took the play for a merry one."
The countryman peered forward into the young-old face silhouetted against the glow which, cast upward and over the curtain-rod across the stage, but faintly reached the gallery. ”

“ The Parson grumbled a bit; but, indeed, the woman was piled about with packages up to the neck. So, very sad-like, he went back to his own chaise—that was now slewed about for Falmouth—and off the procession started at an easy trot, the good man bouncing up in his seat from time to time to blow back a kiss.
But after awhile he shouted to the post-boy to pull up again.
"What's the matter, love?" sings out Mrs. Polwhele, overtaking him and coming to a stand likewise.
"Why, it occurs to me, my angel, that you might get into my chaise, if you're not too tightly wedged." ”

“ A dare-devil jade, too, to be sparking it on Bankside at this hour! But it takes more than a woman, they say, to kill a mouse, and with serpents her sex hath an ancient feud. What's her name, I wonder?"
The candles, burning low and guttering in the draught of the open window, showed a banquet-hall deserted, or all but deserted. A small crowd of the guests—our apprentice among them—had trooped downstairs after Shakespeare and his burden. Others, reminded by the grey dawn, had slipped away on their own account to hire a passage home from the sleepy watermen before Paris Garden Stairs. ”

“ Polwhele. "If the French have landed and I'm going home to be burnt in my bed, it shall be with my eyes open."
"My dear Mary," the Parson argued, "you've a-got the French on your brain. If the French landed they wouldn't begin by sticking dabs of whitewash all over the parish; now, would they?"
"How in the world should I know what a lot of Papists would do or not do?" she answered. "'Tis no more foolish to my mind than eating frogs or kissing a man's toe." ”

“ Why spoil his game by arousing the neighbourhood?"
"Señor Don Andrea, you know too much—thanks to my friend here," said the dark man slowly.
"But we are not assassins," put in the youngster. "Renegade though you be, Don Andrea, I give you your chance." He snatched the foil from his senior's hand and presented it solemnly, hilt foremost, to Fuentes.
"Youth—youth!" murmured Fuentes with an appreciative laugh, as he tucked the foil under his arm, took off his spectacles and rubbed them, laughing again. ”

“ All up a dozen flights of stairs;
There with the sparrows, night and morning,
Under the roof she chirps her prayers.
They say her wisdom comes from heaven—
[Pg 323]
Will you not take a guitar, Señorita, and help me with the old song?
So near the clouds and chimneys meet—
I rather think Luisa's sparrows
Fetch it aloft there from the street!"
Above all things women suspect and fear irony: it is not one of their weapons. Luisa glanced at Fuentes doubtfully, I could see, and with some pain in her doubt. ”

“ They made an Admiral of him in the end, but they never cured his cussedness: and my grandfather, that followed his history (and good reason for why) from the day he first set foot in this parish, used to rub his hands over every fresh item of news. "Darn it!" he'd say, "here's that old Turk broke loose again. Lord, if he ain't a warrior!" Seemed as if he took a delight in the man, and kept a sort of tenderness for him till the day of his death.
Bless you, though folks have forgotten it, that little affair of the Bounty was only the beginning of Bligh. ”

“ The French were gathering fast, but could not yet make up their minds to assault.
"Our friends," said the General, pouring himself a drink from his pocket-flask, "don't seem in a hurry to add to their artillery."
The men of the light company, standing near him, laughed as they munched their rations. For three days they had plodded through snow and sleet with hot hearts, nursing their Commander-in-Chief's reproof at Calcabellos: "You, 28th, are not the men you used to be. You are no longer the regiment who to a man fought by my side in Egypt!" ”

“ My grandfather went off to unlock the tool-shed, and the Parson back to comfort Mrs. Polwhele—which was no easy matter. "There's something wrong with the parish since I've been away, and that you can't deny," she declared. "It don't feel like home any longer, and my poor flesh is shivering like a jelly, and my hand almost too hot to make the butter." She kept up this lidden all through breakfast, and the meal was no sooner cleared away than she slipped on a shawl and stepped across to the churchyard to discuss the robbery. ”

“ Well, at first the mankind at the Fish and Anchor allowed that Sal couldn't be in earnest; this challenge of hers was all braggadoshy; and one or two went so far as to say 'twould serve her right if she was taken at her word. In fact, no one treated it seriously until four days later, at highwater, when the folks that happened to be idling 'pon the Quay heard a splash off Runnell's boat-building yard, and, behold! off Runnell's slip there floated a six-oared gig, bright as a pin with fresh paint. ”

“ We don't take a groat less."
"I see," said Burbage blandly: "twopence for salving your conscience, hey? And so, being a decent man, you don't stomach players?"
"No, nor the Bankside at this hour o' night. I live clean, I tell you."
"'Tis a godless neighbourhood and a violent." Burbage drew a silver whistle from his doublet and eyed it. "Listen a moment, master wagoner, and tell me what you hear."
"I hear music o' sorts. No Christmas carols, I warrant."
"Aught else?"
"Ay: a sound like a noise of dogs baying over yonder." ”

“ He did not ask how the miracle had befallen. He was starving; dying in fact, though he did not know it; and lo! he had found a heaven beyond all imagination, and lay in it and panted, at rest. The firelight played on the heave and fall of his gaunt shoulder-blades, and on the glass eyes of the Virgin, whose head had rolled half-way across the floor and lay staring up foolishly at the rafters.
"Mother, open! Ah, open quickly, mother, for the love of God!"
Whose voice was that? Yes, yes—Mercedes', to be sure, his granddaughter's. She had gone to Nogales ... long ago.... Yet that was her voice. ”

“ But maybe, as travellers, you're not so susceptible. I find hotel-keepers so careless with their damp sheets! May I ask, gentlemen, if you've come from far? You'll be bound for Falmouth, as I guess: and so am I. You'll find much on the way to admire. But perhaps this is not your first visit to Cornwall?"
In this fashion she was rattling away, good soul—settling her wraps about her and scarcely drawing breath—when Bligh slewed himself around in his seat, and for answer treated her to a long stare. ”

“ In short, speaking as modestly as a young man might of his senior, Will Shakespeare was the age's ornament and, but for lack of an early gruelling in the classics, might easily have been an ornament for any age. Cuthbert Burbage—it is always your quiet man who first succumbs on these occasions—slid beneath the table with a vacuous laugh and lay in slumber. Dick Burbage sat and drummed his toes impatiently. Nashe puffed at a pipe of tobacco. ”