A Warwickshire Lad.

by George Madden Martin.

I

Little Will Shakespeare was going homeward through the dusk from Gammer Gurton's fireside. He had no timorous fears, not he. He would walk proudly and deliberately as becomes a man. Men are not afraid. Yet Gammer had told of strange happenings at her home. A magpie had flown screaming over the roof, the b.u.t.ter would not come in the churn, an' a strange cat had slipped out afore the maid at daybreak--a cat without a tail, Gammer said--

Little Will quickened his pace.

Dusk falls early these December days, and w.i.l.l.y Shakespeare scurrying along the street is only five, and although men are not afraid yet----

So presently when he pulls up he is panting, and he beats against the stubborn street door with little red fists, and falls in at its sudden opening, breathless.

But Mother's finger is on her lips as she looks up from her low chair in the living-room, for the whole world in this Henley Street household stands still and holds its breath when Baby Brother sleeps. Brought up short, Will tiptoes over to the chimney corner. Why will toes stump when one most wants to move noiselessly? He is panting still too with his hurrying and with all he has to tell.

"She says," begins Will before he has even reached Mother's side and his whisper is awesome, "Gammer says that Margery is more than any ailin', she is."

Now chimney corners may be wide and generous and cheerful with their blazing log, but they open into rooms which as night comes on grow big and shadowy, with flickers up against the raftered darkness of the ceilings. Little Will Shakespeare presses closer to his mother's side.

"She says, Gammer does, she says that Margery is witched."

Now Margery was the serving-maid at the house of Gammer Gurton's son-in-law, Goodman Sadler, with whom Gammer lived.

Mother at this speaks sharply. She is outdone about it. "A pretty tale for a child to be hearing," she says. "It is but a fearbabe. I wonder at Gammer, I do."

And turning aside from the cradle which she has been rocking, she lifts small Will to her lap, and he stretching frosty fingers and toes all tingling to the heat, snuggles close. He is glad Mother speaks sharply and is outdone about it; somehow this makes it more rea.s.suring.

"Witched!" says Mother. "Tell me! 'Tis lingering in the lane after dark with that gawky country sweetheart has given her the fever that her betters have been having since the Avon come over bank. A wet autumn is more to be feared than Gammer's witches. Poor luck it is the lubberfolk aren't after the girl in truth; a slattern maid she is, her hearth unswept and house-door always open and the cream ever a-chill. The brownie-folk, I promise you, Will, pinch black and blue for less."

Mother is laughing at him. Little Will recognizes that and smiles back, but half-heartedly, for he is not through confessing.

"I don't like to wear it down my back," says he. "It tickles."

"Wear what?" asks Mother, but even as she speaks must partly divine, for a finger and thumb go searching down between his little nape and the collar of his doublet, and in a moment they draw it forth, a bit of witches' elm.

"Gammer, she sewed it there," says Will.

A little frown was gathering between Mother's brows, which was making small w.i.l.l.y Shakespeare feel still more rea.s.sured and comfortable, when suddenly she gave a cry and start, half rising, so that he, startled too, slid perforce to the floor, clinging to her gown.

Whereupon Mother sank back in her chair, her hand pressed against the kerchief crossed over her bosom, and laughed shamefacedly, for it had been nothing more terrible that had startled her than big, purring Graymalkin, the cat, insinuating his sleek back under her hand as he arched and rubbed about her chair. And so, sitting down shamefacedly, she gathered Will up again and called him goose and little chuck, as if he and not she had been the one to jump and cry out.

But he laughed boisterously. The joke was on Mother, and so he laughed loud, as becomes a man when the joke is on the women folk.

"Ho!" said Will Shakespeare.

"Sh-h-h!" said Mother.

But the mischief was done and Will must get out of her lap, for little Brother Gilbert, awakened, was whimpering in the cradle.

Will clambered up on the settle to think it all over. Mother had started and cried out. So after all was Mother afraid too? Of--of things? Had she said it all to rea.s.sure him? The magpie had flown screaming over the house for he had seen it. So what if the rest were true--that the cat, the cat without the tail stealing out at daybreak, had been--what Gammer said--a witch, weaving overnight her spell about poor Margery? He knew how it would have been; he had heard whispers about these things before; the dying embers on the hearth, the little waxen figure laid to melt thereon, the witch-woman weaving the charm about--now swifter, faster circling--with pa.s.ses of hands above.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Will clambered up on the settle to think it all over"]

Little Will Shakespeare, terrified at his own imaginings, clutched himself, afraid to move. Is that only a shadow yonder in the corner, now creeping toward him, now stealing away?

What is that at the pane? Is it the frozen twigs of the old pippin, or the tapping fingers of some night creature without?

Will Shakespeare falls off the settle in his haste and scuttles to Mother. Once there, he hopes she does not guess why he hangs to her so closely. But he is glad, nevertheless, when the candles are brought in.

II

But these things all vanish from mind when the outer door opens and Dad comes in stamping and blowing. Dad is late, but men are always late. It is expected that they should come in late and laugh at the women who chide and remind them that candles cost and that it makes the maid testy to be kept waiting.

Men should laugh loud like Dad, and catch Mother under the chin and kiss her once, twice, three times. Will means to be just such a man when he grows up, and to fill the room with his big shoulders and bigger laugh as Dad is doing now while tossing Brother Gilbert. He, little Will, he will never be one like Goodman Sadler, Gammer's son-in-law, with a lean, long nose, and a body slipping flatlike through a crack of the door.

And here Dad bends to tweak the ear of Will who would laugh noisily if it hurt twice as badly. It makes him feel himself a man to wink back those tears of pain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Dad bends to tweak the ear of Will"]

"A busy afternoon this, Mary," says Dad. "Old Timothy Quinn from out Welcombe way was in haggling over a dozen hides to sell. Then Burbage was over from Coventry about that matter of the players, and kept me so that I had to send Bardolph out with your Cousin Lambert to Wilmcote to mark that timber for felling."

Now for all Master Shakespeare's big, off-hand mentioning thus of facts, this was meant for a confession.

Mary Shakespeare had risen to take the crowing Gilbert, handed back to her by her husband, and with the other hand was encircling Will, holding to her skirt. She was tall, with both grace and state, and there was a chestnut warmth in the hair about her clear, white brow and nape, and in the brown of her serene and tender eyes. These eyes smiled at John Shakespeare with a hint of upbraiding, and she shook her head at him with playful reproach.

Little Will saw her do it. He knew too how to interpret such a look. Had Father been naughty?

"You are not selling more of the timber, John?" asked Mother.

"Say the word, Mistress Mary Arden of the Asbies," says Father grandly, "and I stop the bargain with your Cousin Lambert where it stands. 'Tis yours to say about your own. Though nothing spend, how shall a man live up to his state? But it shall be as you say, although 'tis for you and the boy. He is the chief bailiff's son--his Dad can feel he has given him that, but would have him more. I have never forgot your people felt their Mary stepped down to wed a Shakespeare. I have applied to the Herald's College for a grant of arms. The Shakespeares are as good as any who fought to place the crown on Henry VII's head. But it shall be stopped. The land and the timber on it is Mistress Mary Shakespeare's, not mine."

But Mary, pushing little Will aside clung to her husband's arm, and the warmth in her tender eyes deepened to something akin to yearning as they looked up at him. With the man of her choice, and her children--with these Mary Shakespeare's life and heart were full. There was no room for ambition for she was content. Had life been any sweeter to her as Mary Arden of the Asbies, daughter of a gentleman, than as Mary Shakespeare, wife of a dealer in leathers? Nay, nor as sweet!

But she could not make her husband see it so. Yet--and she looked up at him with a sudden pa.s.sion of love in that gaze--it was this big, sanguine, restless, masterful spirit in him that had won her. From the narrow, restricted conditions of a provincial gentlewoman's life, she had looked out into a bigger world for living, through the eyes of this masterful yeoman, his heart big with desire to conquer and ambition to achieve. Was her faith in his capacity to know and seize the essential in his venturing, less now than then? Never, never--not that, not that!

"Do as you will about it, John," begs Mary, her cheek against his arm, "only--is it kind to say the land is mine? We talked that all out once, goodman mine. Only this one thing more, John, for I would not seem ever to carp and faultfind--you know that, don't you?--but that Bardolph----"

"He's a low tavern fellow, I allow, Mary--of course, of course. I know all you would say--his nose afire and his ruffian black poll ever being broken in some brawl, but he's a good enough fellow behind it, and useful to me. You needs must keep on terms with high and low, Mary, to hold the good will of all. That's why I am anxious to arrange this matter with Burbage to have the players here, if the Guild will consent----"

"Players?" says Will, listening at his father's side. "What are players?"

"Tut," says Dad, "not know the players! They are actors, Will--players.

Hear the boy--not know the players!"