Anne Feversham

A DISTINGUISHED member of the Lord Chamberlain’s company, Mr. William Shakespeare by name, had entered the shop of a tailor in the town of Nottingham. This popular and respected...

THE personage was a young woman of some eighteen years, breathing youth and its sorcery in every line. She was tall, well grown, of a beauty that was remarkable. She stepped wit...

IN the meantime, the unconscious cause of Mr. William Shakespeare’s enthusiasm was proceeding somewhat arrogantly through the streets of the town. Mistress Anne Feversham was mi...

THIS was a brave thing, already out to set up its will against the world. And of the little world in which she lived her father was the center of authority. He was an august man...

Anne had spent a dreadful night of pain and misery in one of the milder of the Castle dungeons. That is to say, it was above the ground. Also it was free of vermin, it was toler...

GERVASE HERIOT had entered upon the last hours of his life. It was arranged that he should die at eight o’clock of the April morning. He lay in his cell during the watches of th...

THEY had only one hope of getting free. By some means they must cross the open courtyard, and creep round to the Castle gate before the coming dawn had time to reveal them.

SHUDDERING with fear and gasping for breath, they lay side by side, their convulsed faces pressed into the grass. Such a nightmare of terrors as they had endured had for a time...

THEY gave good-day to Mistress Poll and passed on their way wonderfully refreshed in body and spirit. Still they kept by the river. The sun was now shining clear out of a pure a...

BY reason of this odd adventure Anne and Gervase were in good heart all the afternoon. Providence had surely taken them in its care. Food was not plenty, their feet were getting...

CERTAINLY the farmer had the look of a bruiser. Moreover he had a robust confidence in his own powers, and this was expressed by the grin of satisfaction upon his face. A number...

THE light proved to be a fire which had been made by a band of gypsies in a corner of a field. As Gervase and Anne approached, hope revived them again, since a most exquisite sc...

FROM this time forth, as far as it was possible, Gervase and Anne kept to the woods and the fields. For several weeks they yielded themselves to a free life in the open. Drenche...

WHEN a few minutes later Gervase and Anne, as wholesome as the pump in the courtyard could make them, were ushered by their new friend into the breakfast parlor of the Crown, th...

ALAS! a large cup of sack did little to sharpen the remembrance of Mr. William Shakespeare. It was in vain that he brought his mind to bear upon the problem that now engaged it....

SELDOM had the mind of William Shakespeare been exercised more severely than in this hour. No story could have been more poignant. Yet was it the duty even of a true subject and...

AFTER their fine repast at the Crown, Gervase and Anne left Oxford at once. Soon they were in the pleasant meadows that lay all about that famous city. It was a really glorious...

MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE had had a bad night. Indeed he had hardly slept at all. For the life of him he could not rid his mind of that tragic matter in which by fate’s unkindness...

MEANWHILE William Shakespeare had gone in quest of Richard Burbage, that _fidus Achates_ whose counsel was often invoked by this eager, but, at times, irresolute spirit. Now, ho...

“Mr. Heriot,” said the player, “I have been thinking very deeply upon your pass. First let me say that I have a great desire to help you--and your friend--to help you as far as...

THE sound of the clashing steel, of chairs overturning, of shouting and scuffling, brought John Davenant into the room. The sight that met him turned him sick. A man of whom he...

THE inn courtyard was seething with excitement long before the play began. Handbills had been distributed in the town for some days past, and notices of the performance had been...

THE Lord Chamberlain’s servants were in the highest spirits. The remarkable success of their first performance in the famous city of Oxford had pleased them greatly. They had be...

MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE rose early, after a troubled night. Throughout its interminable watches his mind had been dominated by the necessity of keeping the falconer and the fugi...

THERE was little sleep that night either for William Shakespeare or for Gervase Heriot. The early morning found them together in the inn garden. And as they walked up and down i...

GREENFIELD MANOR was a very old house about ten miles out of Oxford. It lay in a secluded spot, but the road to London ran past the high walls of its park. A heavy growth of tre...

HARDLY had this thing come to pass, when a number of startled faces appeared on the outer side of the shutterless window. Shaking and rattling did not serve to force an entrance...

PARFLETE was put to bed at once, and late as was the hour a chirurgeon was sent for. He dressed the wound, and inclined to the opinion that the limb might be saved. But the inju...

AS if to lend color to Shakespeare’s fears, he was soon to hear disquieting news. Finding himself in the course of the morning in the tavern parlor, he overheard the conversatio...

NO time was lost now in moving out of Oxford. Within an hour of Justice Pretyman’s visit, the Lord Chamberlain’s men were on their way to London. They were accompanied by Gervas...

THE morning of the great day broke mistily, with a promise of summer glory. Poor unhappy Anne, lodged in a cool and clean chamber overlooking the river, was awake at the first p...

BY two o’clock that afternoon all was in readiness for the performance of the new comedy before Gloriana and her Court. A pavilion had been raised in the middle of one of the gr...

IT was such a spectacle as could rarely have been seen in that place, this homely fellow without airs or graces or pretensions to fashion, seated in the presence of his sovereig...

IT was an important evening at the Mermaid Tavern. Long before supper time the spacious upper chamber with the sanded floor began to fill. All the regular frequenters of the pla...

GRIEF, consternation, horror surged through that room. For the moment, the shock of the announcement was more than they could bear. It was as if each man present had been stunne...

THE Queen was taking counsel already with the Lord Treasurer, Cecil, her all-wise and all-powerful minister. This morning, she was in a harsh and vengeful mood. Many were the pl...

THERE was a long five minutes of most uncomfortable silence between the four curiously diverse persons in the Queen’s morning chamber. Gloriana was not disposed to conversation...

THE four men, Shakespeare, Burbage, Pembroke, Raleigh, waited in the Queen’s ante-chamber, there to abide the issue. Long they waited. It was a far cry in those days from Richmo...

GERVASE and Anne had been taken the previous evening from Richmond to the Tower. They were placed in a prison as dismal as on that occasion of their first meeting, which now see...

IT happened that one afternoon of early autumn, William Shakespeare rode out to Richmond, as he had done so many times of late, and sought poor Anne where she still lay in the h...