Robert Neilson Stephens

“ Hal's course lay. It was a highway that, not far out of London, became like all other roads of the time narrow and rutty, often a mere ditch below the level of the fields, woods, or commons, at either side; rarely flanked, as in later times, by hedges, walls, or fences of any kind; passing by fewer houses, and through smaller villages, than it is now easy to imagine its doing.
On this, as on every English road, most passenger travel was by horseback or afoot, although the great, had their coaches, crude and slow-moving. ”

“ Who hath ever heard him flaunt his birth before us? Well you know it, if he doth at times assert his gentle blood, 'tis when forced to it; and then 'tis by act and manner, not by speech. Go your ways, Crowe; thou'st been overfree with the pottle-pot again, I'm afeard!"
"Nay," put in the impudent Ophelia, his elbows thrust out, his hands upon his hips, "Master Crowe had picked out the part of Laertes for himself; and because Master Shakespeare chose Hal to play it. Hal is a boaster and not truly gentle born." ”

“ Hal sighed. He would rather let his protection be accepted otherwise. But he inwardly valued her unconscious tribute to the gentlemanhood she divined in him,—the tribute apparent in her taking for granted that he would act her protector even on a journey in which her declared object was to hold him back for the death he was flying from. There were such gentlemen in those days; and there have been such women as Anne—women who will avail themselves of the generosity of men they are seeking to destroy—in all days. ”

“ During the next six hours, he saw, though appeared not to heed, that Anne kept her gaze fixed behind him, upon the robber captain. There was no appeal in her eyes, no promise, no overture to conspiracy; nothing but that intentional lack of definite expression, which makes such eyes the more fascinating, because the more mysterious. Even savages like Rumney are open to the witchery of the unfathomable in a pair of fine eyes. Hal wondered how long the inevitable could be held off. He avoided conversation with Rumney, did not even look back at him, lest pretext might be given for an outbreak. ”

“ Nor was Hal's feeling aught like the bursting elation, the triumph that would shout, the joy that intoxicates. It was but a gentle transition from suspense to relief, from anxiety to ease of mind; a mild but permeating glow of satisfaction; a sweet consciousness of having done a hard task, a consciousness [Pg 350] best expressed by a single sigh of content, a faint smile of self-applause.
At midnight, giving place again to Kit, Marryott sank into a troubled sleep, in which he dreamed of juicy beef, succulent ham, every kind of plump fowl, well basted, and the best wines of France, Spain. ”

“ From the Devil tavern, Hal went to three or four shops farther in Fleet Street, and when he emerged from the last of these he wore a dull green cloth cloak, brown-lined, over his brown velvet doublet; a featherless brown hat of ample brim on his head, and high riding-boots to cover the nether part of his brown silk trunk-hose.
He had already looked his errand in the face, and made some plan for dealing with it. As he would be no match for a band of highway robbers, should he fall in with such between London and Welwyn, he must have at least one stout attendant. Fortunately. ”

“ She gave a shiver, and stayed in her saddle.
"Have no fear, mistress," said Hal. "No harm will come to you. While you go yieldingly, no hand shall touch you; and in any case, no hand but mine own, which is a gentleman's."
"Would you dare use force?" she cried, somewhat huskily, her eyes—half threatening, half intimidated—turned full upon him.
"If I must," said he, meeting her gaze with outward calmness.
She dropped her glance, and was silent. Anthony now placed Francis on the latter's own horse, but kept a stern eye upon him, and a firm hand upon his bridle. ”

“ Did he keep the road to Stevenage, or turn out yonder?"
"Sir Valentine Fleetwood, mean you?" asked Anne, with sudden eagerness.
"The same. Way to pass, please you. And answer."
Roger Barnet was a man of middle height; bodily, of a good thickness and great solidity; a man with a bold, square face, a frown, cold eyes, a short black beard; a keeper of his own counsel, a man of the fewest possible words, and those gruffly spoken. Anne, because her mind was working upon other matter, took no offence at his sharp, discourteous, mandatory style of addressing her. ”

“ Tis worth while, youth, for you doubtless know what is supposed of men found unaccountably near our person, and what end is made of them."
Hal was horrified and heartstricken. "Madam," he murmured, "if my queen, who is the source and the object of all chivalrous thoughts in every gentleman's breast in England, one moment hold it possible that I am here for any purpose against her, let me die! Call guards, your Majesty, and have me slain!"
"Nay," said Elizabeth, convinced and really touched by his feeling, "I spoke not of what I thought, but of what others might infer. ”

“ Hal was aware, from past experience, of this stored-up stock of endurance, that serves its possessor on occasions of extremity. To Anne, its existence within her must have come as a new disclosure. Hal, as a man of gentle rearing, had for her a man's compassion for a woman to whom this discovery is made by hardship undergone for the first time. And yet, so does human nature abound in apparent contradictions, he had a kind of satisfaction, almost gleeful, at the toils she had brought upon herself by attempting to overreach him. ”

“ True, Barnet would have learned at Clown that the supposed Sir Valentine had named himself as a London player; but he would surely think this a lie, as Mistress Hazlehurst had thought it.
A slight noise—something like a man yawning aloud, or moaning in sleep—turned Marryott's musings into another channel. The sound had come from one of the other outhouses, probably that in which were Captain Rumney and Anthony Underhill. It put dark apprehensions into Hal's mind, because of its resemblance to the groan a man might give if he were stabbed to death in slumber. ”

“ To herd with robbers; to lavish the queen's money; to deceive a woman—the object of his love—so that he brought upon himself her hate meant for another; to carry off this woman by force, and put her to the utmost fatigue and risk; to wear out the bodies, and imperil the necks, of himself and so many others,—was it worth all this merely to create a fair opportunity—not a certainty—of escape for a Frenchified English Catholic, whose life was of no consequence to the country? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hal's friends had crowded around him in the tiring-room, which was lighted with candles against the gloom caused by the curtain at the back of the stage. Even Burbage had pressed his hand, and uttered a hope that there might be nothing in this treason matter. "Fortune send thee safe out of it, whatever it be!" was Master Shakespeare's wish. "If thou camest to grief, Hal," said the Juliet, the same pert stripling that had played Ophelia eleven days before, "I should weep like a real girl!" ”

“ Hal informed himself by a single glance that Anthony and Kit were free and able, and then, with an "On we go!" he spurred after the riderless horse toward Stevenage.
"After him, you knaves!" screamed Mistress Hazlehurst, in a transport of baffled rage; but her servants, some unhorsed, some with broken heads or pierced bodies, one with a pistol wound in his side, and the rest endeavoring to get the horses under control, were quite heedless of her cries.
"A sad plight to leave a lady in!" said Hal, who had heard her futile order. ”

“ He soon returned with sparkling eyes, holding up the key.
"Lead Oliver's horse, Kit," said Hal. "Let him show us the way, afoot. Yon turret window hath a long view of the road. We can keep watch there for Barnet."
The worthy Bunch, gazing fondly at the deserted mansion amidst the trees, hastened up the gentle incline of land, followed by the riders. All looked with curious eyes upon the house as they ascended. The horse-path, after passing through an alley of neglected hedgerows, skirted the terrace, and led across one side of the square court to the Gothic main door. ”

“ He woke to tortures of the stomach, and the news that Roger Barnet was still smoking, but peevishly walking, despite his lameness of leg, to and fro in the courtyard.
"I tell thee, Hal," said Bottle, after imparting this information, "we may look to see things afoot soon! If Roger is a devil of pertinacity when he is upon the chase, and a devil of patience when he waits, he is a devil of activity when his body ails overmuch!" ”

“ Will Shakespeare must be in right mood for tragedy nowadays,—his friend Southampton in prison, and Essex a head shorter, and himself ordered to the country. Burn me if I know how a high-hearted knave like Shakespeare, that gentlemen admit to their company, and that has had the court talking of his poems, can endure to be a dog of an actor, and to scribble plays for that stinking rabble out yonder to gape at! ”

“ A short, stout, handsome man, with a thoughtful face, a fine brow, a princely port; like Shakespeare, he was calm, but while Shakespeare had an eye for everything but apparently the part himself was to play, Burbage was absorbed entirely in his own part and unconscious of all else, as if in the tiring-room he was already Hamlet from the moment of putting on that prince's clothes.4
"What a plague are you looking at, Gil Crowe?" suddenly demanded Hal Marryott of another actor, who was gazing at him with a malicious smile evidently caused by Hal's ill-concealed disquietude. ”

“ If, indeed, you have led me off, Master Marryott, and Sir Valentine Fleetwood hath fled over seas, by God, it shall go hard but you die in's place for aiding a traitor! I take you in the queen's name, Sir Player. Nay, question not my right; I have blank warrants for emergent use; your name is soon writ; and back to London you shall ride, with your feet tied 'neath the horse's belly! Mistress, this is part your doing; for you told me 'twas Sir Valentine passed you i' the road that night. You have had all your labor for the wrong man, and given the right one time to 'scape both you and me! ”

“ But thy lips are here. Wilt sing? All are abed. I prithee, a song!"
"Nay, 'twere better you should sing," she answered, by way of evading a course of importunities, and seeing that he was in ripe mood for compliance.
"Willingly, an thou'lt engage to sing in thy turn," he replied.
She gave her promise, thinking she would not have to keep it; for when a gentleman in wine becomes vocally inclined, he is apt to go on like a wound-up clock till he be stopped, or till he run down into slumber.
So Hal began, with Shakespeare's "O mistress mine, where are you roaming?" ”

“ Rumney and his men rode for some distance without answer; Hal and his company, motionless, looking after them. Suddenly, when he was beyond easy overtaking, the robber leader turned in his saddle, and shouted back, vindictively:
"I scorn you, Kit Bottle! You are no better than an Irish footboy! And your master there is a woman-stealing dog, that I'll be quits with yet. He's no gentleman, neither, but a scurvy fencing-master in false feathers!"
"Shall I give chase and make him eat his words?" asked Kit of Master Marryott. ”

“ To an Englishman of that time, moreover, it was worth a world of trouble, merely to please the queen.
But what most and deepest moved Hal forward, and made turning back impossible, was the demand in him for success on its own account, the intolerableness of failure in any deed that he might lay upon himself. Manly souls daily strain great resources for small causes, or for no cause worth considering, for the reason that they cannot endure to fail in what they have, however thoughtlessly, undertaken. The man of mettle will not relinquish; he will die, but he will not let go. ”

“ The queen's name—God save her gracious Majesty!—comes as loyally, methinks, from lips that do not make it a common byword of their trade. Warrant, say you? Your warrant, sirrah, requires not that you guard her Majesty's prisoner rather in one part of this inn than in another part. Let him be guarded upon yonder stage. 'Tis as safe a place, with proper watching, as the chamber you are in. ”

“ It imposed upon Hal, riding at her side, a silence that became the harder to break as it became the less bearable. And the further she tried to put herself out of his pity, the greater his pity grew, for the effort she was required to make. The more his admiration increased, too; and if pity is ever akin to love, it is certainly so when united to admiration. ”

“ Manifestly the Puritan knew the road, and manifestly it was known to the horses, also; for without decrease of swiftness the few black objects at the roadside—indistinct blurs against the less black stretches of night-sky—seemed to race back toward the men in pursuit. Soon the riders had a wood at their right, a park at their left. Then there was perforce a slowing up, for a hill had to be ascended. But by this time the enemy was left almost out of ear-shot. Hal, knowing his party to be the more freshly mounted, took heed to make no further gain at present. ”

“ At sight of Shakespeare, who was whispering to the Horatio and the Marcellus, near the entrance. Master Marryott had another twinge of self-reproach, but this swiftly yielded to visions of the charming face. These drove away also all heed of the presence of Crowe. Hal would have liked to mount the steps to the balcony at the rear of the stage, in which the unemployed actors might sit when it was not in other use, and whence he might view the lady at leisure; but the balcony was soon to be in service as a platform of the castle, in the scene between Hamlet and the ghost. ”

“ The snow fell between the window and the trees of the park; fell as thick as ever, but more slowly and gently now, the wind being at [Pg 290] less unrest. The firelight danced oddly on the tapestry, the shadows deepened in its brighter radiance. Not a word was uttered. Only the viol and the virginal spoke.
This strange concert was interrupted, at last, by the return of Anthony and Oliver, with a supply of cheese, spice-cakes, and apples, a bottle of wine, a large pot of ale, and a bag of feed for the horses. ”

“ A score of horsemen have entered Harmby; 'tis but four miles distant. They may be here any moment. Perchance they are the pursuivant and his men; perchance, Captain Rumney, with his band augmented! We must begone! God knows how it wounds my soul to put you to discomfort! But necessity cries 'on,' and ride forth we must!"
"Then ride forth without me. Let me die here alone."
"But I dare not leave you here. If Roger Barnet came and found you—" He did not complete the sentence. His thought was, that her account of him to Barnet might send men flying back for the real Sir Valentine. ”

“ The object of this double chase, Master Marryott, rode on with his two men, through the night, beyond Stevenage, at what pace it seemed best to maintain. The slowness, incredible to a bicyclist or horseman who to-day follows the same route, was all the greater for the darkness; but slowness had good cause without darkness. English horse-breeding had not yet shown or sought great results in speed. An Elizabethan steed would make a strange showing on a twentieth century race-track; for the special product of those days was neither horses nor machines, but men. ”

“ 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? ”