Chapter 4

“Their first steps were thitherward.”

SIR THOMAS.

“Did they come back unto the punt?”

JOSEPH CARNABY.

“They went down the stream in it, and crossed the Avon some fourscore yards below where we were standing. They came back in it, and moored it to the sedges in which it had stood before.”

SIR THOMAS.

“How long were they absent?”

JOSEPH CARNABY.

“Within an hour, or thereabout, all the three men returned. Will Shakspeare and another were sitting in the middle, the third punted.

“‘Remember now, gentles!’ quoth William Shakspeare, ‘the road we have taken is henceforward a footpath for ever, according to law.’

“‘How so?’ asked the punter, turning toward him,

“‘Forasmuch as a corpse hath passed along it,’ answered he.

“Whereupon both Euseby and myself did forthwith fall upon our faces, commending our souls unto the Lord.”

SIR THOMAS.

“It was then really the dead body that quivered so fearfully upon the water, covering all the punt! Christ, deliver us! I hope the keeper they murdered was not Jeremiah. His wife and four children would be very chargeable, and the man was by no means amiss. Proceed! what further?”

“On reaching the bank, ‘I never sat pleasanter in my lifetime,’ said William Shakspeare, ‘than upon this carcass.’”

SIR THOMAS.

“Lord have mercy upon us! Thou upon a carcass, at thy years!”

And the knight drew back his chair half an ell farther from the table, and his lips quivered at the thought of such inhumanity.

“And what said he more? and what did he?” asked the knight.

JOSEPH CARNABY.

“He patted it smartly, and said, ‘Lug it out; break it.’”

SIR THOMAS.

“These four poor children! who shall feed them?”

SIR SILAS.

“Sir! in God’s name have you forgotten that Jeremiah is gone to Nuneaton to see his father, and that the murdered man is the buck?”

SIR THOMAS.

“They killed the buck likewise. But what, ye cowardly varlets! have ye been deceiving me all this time? And thou, youngster! couldst thou say nothing to clear up the case? Thou shalt smart for it. Methought I had lost by a violent death the best servant ever man had—righteous, if there be no blame in saying it, as the prophet whose name he beareth, and brave as the lion of Judah.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“Sir, if these men could deceive your worship for a moment, they might deceive me for ever. I could not guess what their story aimed at, except my ruin. I am inclined to lean for once toward the opinion of Master Silas, and to believe it was really the stolen buck on which this William (if indeed there is any truth at all in the story) was sitting.”

SIR THOMAS.

“What more hast thou for me that is not enigma or parable?”

JOSEPH CARNABY.

“I did not see the carcass, man’s or beast’s, may it please your worship, and I have recited and can recite that only which I saw and heard. After the words of lugging out and breaking it, knives were drawn accordingly. It was no time to loiter or linger. We crope back under the shadow of the alders and hazels on the high bank that bordereth Mickle Meadow, and, making straight for the public road, hastened homeward.”

SIR THOMAS.

“Hearing this deposition, dost thou affirm the like upon thy oath, Master Euseby Treen, or dost thou vary in aught essential?”

EUSEBY TREEN.

“Upon my oath I do depose and affirm the like, and truly the identical same; and I will never more vary upon aught essential.”

SIR THOMAS.

“I do now further demand of thee whether thou knowest anything more appertaining unto this business.”

EUSEBY TREEN.

“Ay, verily; that your worship may never hold me for timorsome and superstitious, I do furthermore add that some other than deer-stealers was abroad. In sign whereof, although it was the dryest and clearest night of the season, my jerkin was damp inside and outside when I reached my house-door.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“I warrant thee, Euseby, the damp began not at the outside. A word in thy ear—Lucifer was thy tapster, I trow.”

SIR THOMAS.

“Irreverent swine! hast no awe nor shame. Thou hast aggravated thy offence, William Shakspeare, by thy foul-mouthedness.”

SIR SILAS.

“I must remind your worship that he not only has committed this iniquity afore, but hath pawed the puddle he made, and relapsed into it after due caution and reproof. God forbid that what he spake against me, out of the gall of his proud stomach, should move me. I defy him, a low, ignorant wretch, a rogue and vagabond, a thief and cut-throat, a — {66a} monger and mutton-eater.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“Your worship doth hear the learned clerk’s testimony in my behalf. ‘Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings’—”

SIR THOMAS.

“Silas, the youth has failings—a madcap; but he is pious.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“Alas, no, sir! Would I were! But Sir Silas, like the prophet, came to curse, and was forced to bless me, even me, a sinner, a mutton-eater!”

SIR THOMAS.

“Thou urgedst him. He beareth no ill-will toward thee. Thou knewedst, I suspect, that the blackness in his mouth proceeded from a natural cause.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“The Lord is merciful! I was brought hither in jeopardy; I shall return in joy. Whether my innocence be declared or otherwise, my piety and knowledge will be forwarded and increased; for your worship will condescend, even from the judgment-seat, to enlighten the ignorant where a soul shall be saved or lost. And I, even I, may trespass a moment on your courtesy. I quail at the words _natural cause_. Be there any such?”

SIR THOMAS.

“Youth! I never thought thee so staid. Thou hast, for these many months, been represented unto me as one dissolute and light, much given unto mummeries and mysteries, wakes and carousals, cudgel-fighters and mountebanks and wanton women. They do also represent of thee—I hope it may be without foundation—that thou enactest the parts, not simply of foresters and fairies, girls in the green-sickness and friars, lawyers and outlaws, but likewise, having small reverence for station, of kings and queens, knights and privy-counsellors, in all their glory. It hath been whispered, moreover, and the testimony of these two witnesses doth appear in some measure to countenance and confirm it, that thou hast at divers times this last summer been seen and heard alone, inasmuch as human eye may discover, on the narrow slip of greensward between the Avon and the chancel, distorting thy body like one possessed, and uttering strange language, like unto incantation. This, however, cometh not before me. Take heed! take heed unto thy ways; there are graver things in law even than homicide and deer-stealing.”

SIR SILAS.

“And strong against him. Folks have been consumed at the stake for pettier felonies and upon weaker evidence.”

SIR THOMAS.

“To that anon.”

William Shakspeare did hold down his head, answering nought. And Sir Thomas spake again unto him, as one mild and fatherly, if so be that such a word may be spoken of a knight and parliament-man. And these are the words he spake:—

“Reason and ruminate with thyself now. To pass over and pretermit the danger of representing the actions of the others, and mainly of lawyers and churchmen, the former of whom do pardon no offences, and the latter those only against God, having no warrant for more, canst thou believe it innocent to counterfeit kings and queens? Supposest thou that if the impression of their faces on a farthing be felonious and rope-worthy, the imitation of head and body, voice and bearing, plume and strut, crown and mantle, and everything else that maketh them royal and glorious, be aught less? Perpend, young man, perpend! Consider, who among inferior mortals shall imitate them becomingly? Dreamest thou they talk and act like checkmen at Banbury fair? How can thy shallow brain suffice for their vast conceptions? How darest thou say, as they do: ‘Hang this fellow; quarter that; flay; mutilate; stab; shoot; press; hook; torture; burn alive’? These are royalties. Who appointed thee to such office? The Holy Ghost? He alone can confer it; but when wert thou anointed?”

William was so zealous in storing up these verities that he looked as though he were unconscious that the pouring-out was over. He started, which he had not done before, at the voice of Master Silas; but soon recovered his complacency, and smiled with much serenity at being called low-minded varlet.

“Low-minded varlet!” cried Master Silas, most contemptuously, “dost thou imagine that king calleth king, like thy chums, _filcher_ and _fibber_, _whirligig_ and _nincompoop_? Instead of this low vulgarity and sordid idleness, ending in nothing, they throw at one another such fellows as thee by the thousand, and when they have cleared the land, render God thanks and make peace.”

Willy did now sigh out his ignorance of these matters; and he sighed, mayhap, too, at the recollection of the peril he had run into, and had ne’er a word on the nail. {70a}

The bowels of Sir Thomas waxed tenderer and tenderer; and he opened his lips in this fashion:—

“Stripling! I would now communicate unto thee, on finding thee docile and assentaneous, the instruction thou needest on the signification of the words _natural cause_, if thy duty toward thy neighbour had been first instilled into thee.”

Whereupon Master Silas did interpose, for the dinner hour was drawing nigh.

“We cannot do all at once,” quoth he. “Coming out of order, it might harm him. Malt before hops, the world over, or the beer muddies.”

But Sir Thomas was not to be pricked out of his form even by so shrewd a pricker; and like unto one who heareth not, he continued to look most graciously on the homely vessel that stood ready to receive his wisdom.

“Thy mind,” said he, “being unprepared for higher cogitations, and the groundwork and religious duty not being well rammer-beaten and flinted, I do pass over this supererogatory point, and inform thee rather, that bucks and swans and herons have something in their very names announcing them of knightly appurtenance; and (God forfend that evil do ensue therefrom!) that a goose on the common, or a game-cock on the loft of a cottager or villager, may be seized, bagged, and abducted, with far less offence to the laws. In a buck there is something so gainly and so grand, he treadeth the earth with such ease and such agility, he abstaineth from all other animals with such punctilious avoidance, one would imagine God created him when he created knighthood. In the swan there is such purity, such coldness is there in the element he inhabiteth, such solitude of station, that verily he doth remind me of the Virgin Queen herself. Of the heron I have less to say, not having him about me; but I never heard his lordly croak without the conceit that it resembled a chancellor’s or a primate’s.

“I do perceive, William Shakspeare, thy compunction and contrition.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“I was thinking, may it please your worship, of the game-cock and the goose, having but small notion of herons. This doctrine of abduction, please your worship, hath been alway inculcated by the soundest of our judges. Would they had spoken on other points with the same clearness. How many unfortunates might thereby have been saved from crossing the Cordilleras!” {72a}

SIR THOMAS.

“Ay, ay! they have been fain to fly the country at last, thither or elsewhere.”

And then did Sir Thomas call unto him Master Silas, and say,—

“Walk we into the bay-window. And thou mayest come, Ephraim.”

And when we were there together, I, Master Silas, and his worship, did his worship say unto the chaplain, but oftener looking toward me,—

“I am not ashamed to avouch that it goeth against me to hang this young fellow, richly as the offence in its own nature doth deserve it, he talketh so reasonably; not indeed so reasonably, but so like unto what a reasonable man may listen to and reflect on. There is so much, too, of compassion for others in hard cases, and something so very near in semblance to innocence itself in that airy swing of lightheartedness about him. I cannot fix my eyes (as one would say) on the shifting and sudden _shade-and-shine_, which cometh back to me, do what I will, and mazes me in a manner, and blinks me.”

At this juncture I was ready to fall upon the ground before his worship, and clasp his knees for Willy’s pardon. But he had so many points about him, that I feared to discompose ’em, and thus make bad worse. Besides which, Master Silas left me but scanty space for good resolutions, crying,—

“He may be committed, to save time. Afterward he may be sentenced to death, or he may not.”

SIR THOMAS.

“’T were shame upon me were he not; ’t were indication that I acted unadvisedly in the commitment.”

SIR SILAS.

“The penalty of the law may be commuted, if expedient, on application to the fountain of mercy in London.”

SIR THOMAS.

“Maybe, Silas, those shall be standing round the fount of mercy who play in idleness and wantonness with its waters, and let them not flow widely, nor take their natural course. Dutiful gallants may encompass it, and it may linger among the flowers they throw into it, and never reach the parched lip on the wayside.

“These are homely thoughts—thoughts from a-field, thoughts for the study and housekeeper’s room. But whenever I have given utterance unto them, as my heart hath often prompted me with beatings at the breast, my hearers seemed to bear toward me more true and kindly affection than my richest fancies and choicest phraseologies could purchase.

“’T were convenient to bethink thee, should any other great man’s park have been robbed this season, no judge upon the bench will back my recommendation for mercy. And, indeed, how could I expect it? Things may soon be brought to such a pass that their lordships shall scarcely find three haunches each upon the circuit.”

“Well, Sir!” quoth Master Silas, “you have a right to go on in your own way. Make him only give up the girl.”

Here Sir Thomas reddened with righteous indignation, and answered,—

“I cannot think it! such a stripling! poor, penniless; it must be some one else.” And now Master Silas did redden in his turn, redder than Sir Thomas, and first asked me,—

“What the devil do you stare at?” And then asked his worship,—

“Who should it be if not the rogue?” and his lips turned as blue as a blue-bell. Then Sir Thomas left the window, and again took his chair, and having stood so long on his legs, groaned upon it to ease him. His worship scowled with all his might, and looked exceedingly wroth and vengeful at the culprit, and said unto him,—

“Harkye, knave! I have been conferring with my learned clerk and chaplain in what manner I may, with the least severity, rid the county (which thou disgracest) of thee.”

William Shakspeare raised up his eyes, modestly and fearfully, and said slowly these few words, which, had they been a better and nobler man’s, would deserve to be written in letters of gold. I, not having that art nor substance, do therefore write them in my largest and roundest character, and do leave space about ’em, according to their rank and dignity:—

“Worshipful sir!”

“A WORD IN THE EAR IS OFTEN AS GOOD AS A HALTER UNDER IT, AND SAVES THE GROAT.”

“Thou discoursest well,” said Sir Thomas, “but others can discourse well likewise. Thou shalt avoid; I am resolute.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“I supplicate your honour to impart unto me, in your wisdom, the mode and means whereby I may surcease to be disgraceful to the county.”

SIR THOMAS.

“I am not bloody-minded.

“First, thou shalt have the fairest and fullest examination. Much hath been deposed against thee; something may come forth for thy advantage. I will not thy death; thou shalt not die.

“The laws have loopholes, like castles, both to shoot from and to let folks down.”

SIR SILAS.

“That pointed ear would look the better for paring, and that high forehead can hold many letters.”

Whereupon did William, poor lad! turn deadly pale, but spake not.

Sir Thomas then abated a whit of his severity, and said, staidly,—

“Testimony doth appear plain and positive against thee; nevertheless am I minded and prompted to aid thee myself, in disclosing and unfolding what thou couldst not of thine own wits, in furtherance of thine own defence.

“One witness is persuaded and assured of the evil spirit having been abroad, and the punt appeared unto him diversely from what it appeared unto the other.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“If the evil spirit produced one appearance, he might have produced all, with deference to the graver judgment of your worship.

“If what seemed _punt_ was _devil_, what seemed _buck_ might have been _devil_ too; nay, more easily, the horns being forthcoming.

“Thieves and reprobates do resemble him more nearly still; and it would be hard if he could not make free with their bodies, when he has their souls already.”

SIR THOMAS.

“But, then, those voices! and thou thyself, Will Shakspeare!”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“O might I kiss the hand of my deliverer, whose clear-sightedness throweth such manifest and plenary light upon my innocence!”

SIR THOMAS.

“How so? What light, in God’s name, have I thrown upon it as yet?”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“Oh! those voices! those faeries and spirits! whence came they? None can deal with ’em but the devil, the parson, and witches. And does not the devil oftentimes take the very form, features, and habiliments of knights, and bishops, and other good men, to lead them into temptation and destroy them? or to injure their good name, in failure of seduction?

“He is sure of the wicked; he lets them go their ways out of hand.

“I think your worship once delivered some such observation, in more courtly guise, which I would not presume to ape. If it was not your worship, it was our glorious lady the queen, or the wise Master Walsingham, or the great Lord Cecil. I may have marred and broken it, as sluts do a pancake, in the turning.”

SIR THOMAS.

“Why! ay, indeed, I had occasion once to remark as much.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“So have I heard in many places; although I was not present when Matthew Atterend fought about it for the honour of Kineton hundred.”

SIR THOMAS.

“Fought about it!”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“As your honour recollects. Not but on other occasions he would have fought no less bravely for the queen.”

SIR THOMAS.

“We must get thee through, were it only for thy memory,—the most precious gift among the mental powers that Providence hath bestowed upon us. I had half forgotten the thing myself. Thou mayest, in time, take thy satchel for London, and aid good old Master Holingshed.

“We must clear thee, Will! I am slow to surmise that there is blood upon thy hands!”

His worship’s choler had all gone down again; and he sat as cool and comfortable as a man sitteth to be shaved. Then called he on Euseby Treen, and said,—

“Euseby Treen! tell us whether thou observedst anything unnoticed or unsaid by the last witness.”

EUSEBY TREEN.

“One thing only, sir!

“When they had passed the water an owlet hooted after them; and methought, if they had any fear of God before their eyes they would have turned back, he cried so lustily.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“Sir, I cannot forbear to take the owlet out of your mouth. He knocks them all on the head like so many mice. Likely story! One fellow hears him cry lustily, the other doth not hear him at all!”

JOSEPH CARNABY.

“Not hear him! A body might have heard him at Barford or Sherbourne.”

SIR THOMAS.

“Why didst not name him? Canst not answer me?”

JOSEPH CARNABY.

“_He_ doubted whether punt were punt; I doubted whether owlet were owlet, after Lucifer was away from the roll-call.

“We say, _Speak the truth and shame the devil_; but shaming him is one thing, your honour, and facing him another! I have heard owlets, but never owlet like him.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“The Lord be praised! All, at last, a-running to my rescue.

“Owlet, indeed! Your worship may have remembered in an ancient book—indeed, what book is so ancient that your worship doth not remember it?—a book printed by Doctor Faustus—”

SIR THOMAS.

“Before he dealt with the devil?”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“Not long before, it being the very book that made the devil think it worth his while to deal with him.”

SIR THOMAS.

“What chapter thereof wouldst thou recall unto my recollection?”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“That concerning owls, with the grim print afore it.

“Doctor Faustus, the wise doctor, who knew other than owls and owlets, knew the tempter in that form. Faustus was not your man for fancies and figments; and he tells us that, to his certain knowledge, it was verily an owl’s face that whispered so much mischief in the ear of our first parent.

“One plainly sees it, quoth Doctor Faustus, under that gravity which in human life we call dignity, but of which we read nothing in the Gospel. We despise the hangman, we detest the hanged; and yet, saith Duns Scotus, could we turn aside the heavy curtain, or stand high enough a-tiptoe to peep through its chinks and crevices, we should perhaps find these two characters to stand justly among the most innocent in the drama. He who blinketh the eyes of the poor wretch about to die doeth it out of mercy; those who preceded him, bidding him in the garb of justice to shed the blood of his fellow-man, had less or none. So they hedge well their own grounds, what care they? For this do they catch at stakes and thorns, at quick and rotten—”

Here Master Silas interrupted the discourse of the devil’s own doctor, delivered and printed by him before he was the devil’s, to which his worship had listened very attentively and delightedly. But Master Silas could keep his temper no longer, and cried, fiercely, “Seditious sermonizer! hold thy peace, or thou shalt answer for ’t before convocation.”

SIR THOMAS.

“Silas! thou dost not approve, then, the doctrine of this Doctor Duns?”

SIR SILAS.

“Heretical Rabbi!”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“_If two of a trade can never agree_, yet surely two of a name may.”

SIR SILAS.

“Who dares call me heretical? who dares call me rabbi? who dares call me Scotus? Spider! spider! yea, thou hast one corner left; I espy thee, and my broom shall reach thee yet.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“I perceive that Master Silas doth verily believe I have been guilty of suborning the witnesses, at least the last, the best man (if any difference) of the two. No, sir, no. If my family and friends have united their wits and money for this purpose, be the crime of perverted justice on their heads! They injure whom they intended to serve. Improvident men!—if the young may speak thus of the elderly; could they imagine to themselves that your worship was to be hoodwinked and led astray?”

SIR THOMAS.

“No man shall ever dare to hoodwink me, to lead me astray,—no, nor lead me anywise. Powerful defence! Heyday! Sit quiet, Master Treen!—Euseby Treen! dost hear me? Clench thy fist again, sirrah! and I clap thee in the stocks.

“Joseph Carnaby! do not scratch thy breast nor thy pate before me.”

Now Joseph had not only done that in his wrath, but had unbuckled his leathern garter, fit instrument for strife and blood, and peradventure would have smitten, had not the knight, with magisterial authority, interposed.

His worship said unto him, gravely,—

“Joseph Carnaby! Joseph Carnaby! hast thou never read the words ‘_Put up thy sword_’?”

“Subornation! your worship!” cried Master Joe. “The fellow hath ne’er a shilling in leather or till, and many must go to suborn one like me.”

“I do believe it of thee,” said Sir Thomas; “but patience, man! patience! he rather tended toward exculpating thee. Ye have far to walk for dinner; ye may depart.”

They went accordingly.

Then did Sir Thomas say, “These are hot men, Silas!”

And Master Silas did reply unto him,—

“There are brands that would set fire to the bulrushes in the mill-pool. I know these twain for quiet folks, having coursed with them over Wincott.”