Judith Shakespeare: Her love affairs and other adventures. William Black

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СКАЧАТЬ of them are plenty of pretty maidens to be had for the asking, so you be civil-spoken enough, and bear yourself well. Now tell me your fancy, sweetheart; what shall her height be?"

      "Why, you know, Judith," said he, rather shamefacedly. "Just your height."

      "My height?" she said, carelessly. "Why, that is neither the one way nor the other. My father says I am just as high as his heart; and with that I am content. Well, now, her hair – what color of hair shall she have?"

      "Like yours, Judith; and it must come round about her ears like yours," said he, glancing up for a moment.

      "Eyes: must they be black, or gray, or brown, or blue? nay, you shall have your choice, sweetheart Willie; there be all sorts, if you go far enough afield and look around you. What eyes do you like, now?"

      "You know well, Judith, there is no one has such pretty eyes as you; these are the ones I like, and no others."

      "Bless the boy! – would you have her to be like me?"

      "Just like you, Judith – altogether," said he, promptly; and he added, more shyly, "for you know there is none as pretty, and they all of them say that."

      "Marry, now!" said she, with a laugh. "Here be news. What? When you go choosing your sweetheart, would you pick out one that had as large hands as these?"

      She held forth her hands, and regarded them; and yet with some complacency, for she had put on a pair of scented gloves which her father had brought her from London, and these were beautifully embroidered with silver, for he knew her tastes, and that she was not afraid to wear finery, whatever the preachers might say.

      "Why, you know, Judith," said he, "that there is none has such pretty hands as you, nor so white, nor so soft."

      "Heaven save us! am I perfection, then?" she cried (but she was pleased). "Must she be altogether like me?"

      "Just so, Cousin Judith; altogether like you; and she must wear pretty things like you, and walk as you walk, and speak like you, else I shall not love her nor go near her, though she were the Queen herself."

      "Well said, sweetheart Willie! – you shall to the court some day, if you can speak so fair. And shall I tell you, now, how you must woo and win such a one?" she continued, lightly. "It may be you shall find her here or there – in a farm-house, perchance; or she may be a great lady with her coach; or a wench in an ale-house; but if she be as you figure her, this is how you shall do: you must not grow up to be too nice and fine and delicate-handed; you must not bend too low for her favor; but be her lord and governor; and you must be ready to fight for her, if need there be – yes, you shall not suffer a word to be said in dispraise of her; and for slanderers you must have a cudgel and a stout arm withal; and yet you must be gentle with her, because she is a woman; and yet not too gentle, for you are a man; and you must be no slape-face, with whining through the nose that we are all devilish and wicked and the children of sin; and you must be no tavern-seeker, with oaths and drunken jests and the like; and when you find her you must be the master of her – and yet a gentle master: marry, I cannot tell you more; but, as I hope for heaven, sweet Willie, you will do well and fairly if she loves thee half as much as I do."

      And she patted the boy's head. What sudden pang was it that went through his heart?

      "They say you are going to marry Parson Blaise, Judith," said he, looking up at her.

      "Do they, now?" said she, with a touch of color in her face. "They are too kind that would take from me the business of choosing for myself."

      "Is it true, Judith?"

      "It is but idle talk; heed it not, sweetheart," said she, rather sharply. "I would they were as busy with their fingers as with their tongues; there would be more wool spun in Warwickshire!"

      But here she remembered that she had no quarrel with the lad, who had but innocently repeated the gossip he had heard; and so she spoke to him in a more gentle fashion; and, as they were now come to a parting of the ways, she said that she had a message to deliver, and bade him go on by himself to the cottage, and have some flowers gathered for her from out of the garden by the time she should arrive. He was a biddable boy, and went on without further question. Then she turned off to the left, and in a few minutes was in the wide and wooded lane where she was to meet the young gentleman that had appealed to her friendliness.

      And there, sure enough, he was; and as he came forward, hat in hand, to greet her, those eloquent black eyes of his expressed so much pleasure (and admiration of a respectful kind) that Judith became for a moment a trifle self-conscious, and remembered that she was in unusually brave attire. There may have been something else: some quick remembrance of the surprise and alarm of the morning; and also – in spite of her determination to banish such unworthy fancies – some frightened doubt as to whether, after all, there might not be a subtle connection between her meeting with this young gentleman and the forecasts of the wizard. This was but for a moment, but it confused her in what she had intended to say (for, in crossing the meadows, she had been planning out certain speeches as well as talking idly to Willie Hart), and she was about to make some stumbling confession to the effect that she had obtained no clear intelligence from her gossip Prudence Shawe, when the young gentleman himself absolved her from all further difficulty.

      "I beseech your pardon, sweet lady," said he, "that I have caused you so much trouble, and that to no end; for I am of a mind now not to carry the letter to your father, whatever hopes there might be of his sympathy and friendship."

      She stared in surprise.

      "Nay, but, good sir," said she, "since you have the letter, and are so near to Stratford, that is so great a distance from London, surely it were a world of pities you did not see my father. Not that I can honestly gather that he would have any favor for a desperate enterprise upsetting the peace of the land – "

      "I am in none such, Mistress Judith, believe me," said he, quickly. "But it behooves me to be cautious; and I have heard that within the last few hours which summons me away. If I were inclined to run the risk, there is no time at this present: and what I can do now is to try to thank you for the kindness you have shown to one that has no habit of forgetting."

      "You are going away forthwith?" said she.

      There was no particular reason why she should be sorry at his departure from the neighborhood, except that he was an extraordinarily gentle-spoken young man, and of a courteous breeding, whom her father, as she thought, would have been pleased to welcome as being commended from his friend Ben Jonson. Few visitors came to New Place; the faces to be met with there were grown familiar year after year. It seemed a pity that this stranger – and so fair-spoken a stranger, moreover – should be close at hand, without making her father's acquaintance.

      "Yes, sweet lady," said he, in the same respectful way, "it is true that I must quit my present lodging for a time; but I doubt whether I could find anywhere a quieter or securer place – nay, I have no reason to fear you; I will tell you freely that it is Bassfield Farm, that is on the left before you go down the hill to Bidford; and it is like enough I may come back thither, when that I see how matters stand with me in London."

      And then he glanced at her with a certain diffidence.

      "Perchance I am too daring," said he; "and yet your courtesy makes me bold. Were I to communicate with you when I return – "

      He paused, and his hesitation well became him; it was more eloquent in its modesty than many words.

      "That were easily done," said Judith at once, and with her usual frankness; "but I must tell you, good sir, that any written message you might send me I should have to show to СКАЧАТЬ