A Gentleman Player; His Adventures on a Secret Mission for Queen Elizabeth. Robert Neilson Stephens

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СКАЧАТЬ too little, or a change in the wind, will smother it, or starve it, or violently put it out. Harry hath the spark well lighted, as his raving showeth, and whether it shall soon burn out, or wax into a blaze, lies with future circumstance."

      Harry declared that, if not otherwise fed, it would devour himself. Thereupon Master Sly suggested drowning it in sack; and one would have thought Hal was trying to do so. But the more he drank, the more was he engulfed in ideas of her who had charmed him. Still having a kind of delusion that she was in a manner present, he discoursed as if for her to overhear.

      Ere he knew it, the other players were speaking of bed. Mr. Burbage had already slipped out to fulfil some mysterious engagement for the night within the city, which matter, whatever it was, had been the cause of his coming after supper from his home beyond the bars of Bishopsgate Street without the walls. Master Heminge's apprentices (for Master Heminge was a grocer as well as an actor) had come to escort him and Master Condell to their houses in Aldermanbury; and sturdy varlets were below to serve others of the company in like duty. At this late hour such guards against robbers were necessary in London streets. But Harry, who then lodged in the same house with Mr. Shakespeare, in St. Helen's, Bishopsgate,¹⁴ was not yet for going home. He would make the cannikin clink for some hours more. Knowing the lad's ways, and his ability to take care of himself, Mr. Shakespeare left him to his desires; and at last Harry had no other companion than Will Sly, who still had head and stomach for another good-night flagon or two. When Sly in turn was shaky on his legs and half asleep, Harry accompanied him and his man to their door, reluctantly saw it close upon them, and then, solitary in night-wrapped London, looked up and down the narrow street, considering which way to roam in search of congenial souls, minded, like himself, to revel out the merry hours of darkness.

      He loathed the thought of going to bed yet, and would travel far to find a fellow wassailer. His three shillings—though that sum then would buy more than a pound buys to-day—had gone at the Mermaid. He bethought himself of the taverns at which he might have credit. The list not offering much encouragement, he at last started off at random, leaving events to chance.

      Plunging and swaying, rather than walking, he traversed a few streets, aimlessly turning what corners presented themselves. The creaking of the signs overhead in the wind mingled with the more mysterious sounds of the night. Once he heard a sudden rush of feet from a narrow lane, and instantly backed against a doorway, whipping out rapier and dagger. Two gaunt, ill-looking rascals, disclosed by a lantern hanging from an upper window, stood back and inspected him a moment; then, probably considering him not worth the risk, vanished into the darkness whence they had emerged.

      More roaming brought Hal into Paternoster Row, and thence into Ave Maria Lane, giving him an occasional glimpse at the left, between houses, of the huge bulk of St. Paul's blotting darkly a darkness of another tone. At Ludgate, boldly passing himself off upon the blinking watchman as a belated Page_of Sir Robert Cecil's, he got himself let through, when he ought to have been taken before the constable as a night-walker; and so down the hill he went into Fleet Street. The taverns were now closed for the night to all outward appearance, the bells of Bow and other churches having rung the curfew some hours since—at nine o'clock. But Hal knew that merriment was awake behind more than one cross-barred door-post or red lattice; and he tried several doors, but in vain. At last he found himself under the sign of the Devil, on the south side of the street, close to Temple Bar. There was likelihood that Ben Jonson might be there, for Ben also was a fellow of late hours. Hal's heart suddenly warmed toward Master Jonson; he forgot the satire on the Globe plays, the apparent ingratitude to Shakespeare, and thought only of the convivial companion.

      Much knocking on the door brought a servant of the tavern, by whom Hal, learning that Master Jonson was indeed above, sent up his name. He was at length admitted, and found his way to a large room in which he beheld the huge form and corrugated countenance of him he sought. Master Jonson filled a great chair at one side of a square table, and was discoursing to a group of variously attired gentlemen. Temple students, and others, this audience being in all different stages of wine. He greeted Master Hal in a somewhat severe yet paternal manner, beckoned him to his chair-side, and inquired in an undertone how Mr. Shakespeare fared. Manifestly the "war of the theatres," as it was called, had not destroyed the private esteem between the two dramatists. Hal's presence caused the talk to fall, in time, upon the new "Hamlet," which some of the then present members of the tribe of Ben had seen.

      One young gentleman of the Temple, in the insolent stage of inebriety, spoke sneeringly of the play; whereupon Hal answered hotly. Both flashed out rapiers at the same instant, and as the table was between them Hal leaped upon it, to reach more quickly his opponent. Only the prompt action of Master Jonson, who mounted the table, making it groan beneath his weight, and thrust himself between the two, cut short the brawl. But now, each antagonist deeming himself the aggrieved person, and the Templar being upheld by several of the company, and a great noise of tongues arising, and the host running in to suppress the tumult, it was considered advisable to escort Master Marryott from the place. He was therefore hustled out by Master Jonson, the host, and a tapster; and so found himself eventually in the street, the door barred against him.

      He then perceived that he was without his rapier. It had been wrested from him at the first interference with the quarrel. Wishing to recover it, and in a wrathful spirit, he pounded on the door with his dagger hilt, and called out loudly for the return of his weapon; but his efforts being misinterpreted, he was left to pound and shout in vain. Baffled and enraged, he started back toward Ludgate, with some wild thought of enlisting a band of ruffians to storm the tavern. But the wine had now got so complete possession of him that, when a figure emerging from Water Lane bumped heavily against him, all memory of the recent incident was knocked out of his mind.

      "What in the fiend's name—"grumbled the newcomer; then suddenly changed his tone. "Why, od's-body, 'tis Master Marryott! Well met, boy! Here be thy two shillings, and never say Kit Bottle payeth not his debts. I've just been helping my friend to his lodging here at the sign of the Hanging Sword. 'Twas the least I could do for him. Art for a merry night of it, my bawcock? Come with me to Turnbull Street. There be a house there, where I warrant a welcome to any friend of Kit Bottle's. I've been out of favor there of late, but now my pockets sing this tune" (he rattled the coin in them), "and arms will be open for us."

      Rejoiced at this encounter, Hal took the captain's arm, and strode with him through Shoe Lane, across Holborn Bridge, through Cow Lane, past the Pens of Smithfield, and so—undeterred by sleeping watchmen or by the post-and-chain bar—into Turnbull Street.¹⁵ Kit knocked several times at the door of one of the forward-leaning houses, before he got a response. Then a second-story casement was opened, and a hoarse female voice asked who was below.

      "What, canst not see 'tis old Kit, by the flame of his nose?" replied the captain.

      The woman told him to wait a minute, and withdrew from the window.

      "See, lad," whispered Bottle, "'tis late hours when Kit Bottle can't find open doors. To say true, I was afeard my welcome here might be a little halting; but it seems old scores are forgot. We shall be merry here, Hal!"

      A sudden splash at their very feet made them start back and look up at the window. A pair of hands, holding an upturned pail, was swiftly drawn back, and the casement was then immediately closed.

      Bottle smothered an oath. "Wert caught in any of that shower, lad?" he asked Hal.

      "'Scaped by an inch," said Hal, with a hiccough. "Marry, is this thy welcome?"

      Kit's wrath against the inmates of the house now exploded. Calling them "scullions," "scavengers," and names still less flattering, he began kicking and hammering on the door as if to break it down. Moved by the spirit of violence, Hal joined him in this demonstration. The upper windows opened, and voices began screaming "Murder!" and "Thieves!" In a short time several denizens of the neighborhood—which was a neighborhood of nocturnal СКАЧАТЬ