But she had been speaking too eagerly. This was a slip; and instantly she added, with some touch of confusion,

"I mean that I would fain have my father's friends in London know that his family are not so far out of the world, or out of the fashion."

"Is he one of your father's friends, Judith?" Prudence said, gravely.

"He is a friend of my father's friends, at least," said she, "and some day, I doubt not, he will himself be one of these. Truly that will be a rare sight, some evening at New Place, when we confront you with him, and tell him how he was charged with being a ghost, or a pirate, or an a.s.sa.s.sin, or something of the like."

"Your fancy runs free, Judith," her friend said. "Is't a probable thing, think you, that one that dares not come forth into the day, that is hiding from justice, or perchance scheming in Catholic plots, should become the friend of your house?"

"You saw him not at my grandmother's board, good Prue," said Judith, coolly. "The young gentleman hath the trick of making himself at home wherever he cometh, I warrant you. And when this cloud blows away, and he is free to come to Stratford, there is none will welcome him more heartily than I, for methinks he holdeth Master Benjamin Jonson in too high consideration, and I would have him see what is thought of my father in the town, and what his estate is, and that his family, though they live not in London, are not wholly of Moll the milkmaid kind. And I would have Susan come over too; and were she to forget her preachers and her psalms for but an evening, and were there any merriment going forward, the young gentleman would have to keep his wits clear, I'll be bound. There is the house, too, I would have him see; and the silver-topped tankard with the writing on it from my father's good friends; nay, I warrant me Julius would not think of denying me the loan of the King's letter to my father--were it but for an hour or two----"

But here they were startled into silence by a knocking below; then there was the sound of a man's voice in the narrow pa.s.sage.

"'Tis he, sweetheart," Judith said, quickly, and she kissed her friend, and gave a final touch to the ruff and the cap. "Get you down and welcome him; I will go out when that you have shut the door of the room.

And be merry, good heart, be merry--be brave and merry, as you love me."

She almost thrust her out of the apartment, and listened to hear her descend the stairs; then she waited for the shutting of the chamber door; and finally she stole noiselessly down into the pa.s.sage, and let herself out without waiting for the little maid Margery.

CHAPTER XV.

A FIRST PERFORMANCE.

"Nay, zur," said the sour-visaged Matthew, as he leaned his chin and both hands on the end of a rake, and spoke in his slow-drawling, grumbling fashion--"nay, zur, this country be no longer the country it wur; no, nor never will be again."

"Why, what ails the land?" said Judith's father, turning from the small table in the summer-house, and lying back in his chair, and crossing one knee over the other, as if he would give a s.p.a.ce to idleness.

"Not the land, zur," rejoined goodman Matthew, oracularly--"not the land; it be the men that live in it, and that are all in such haste to make wealth, with plundering of the poor and each other, that there's naught but lying and cheating and roguery--G.o.d-a-mercy, there never wur the loike in any country under the sun! Why, zur, in my vather's time a pair o' shoes would wear you through all weathers for a year; but now, with their half-tanned leather, and their horse-hide, and their cat-skin for the inner sole, 'tis a marvel if the rotten leaves come not asunder within a month. And they be all aloike; the devil would have no choice among 'em. The cloth-maker he hideth his bad wool wi' liquid stuff; and the tailor, no matter whether it be doublet, cloak, or hose, he will filch you his quarter of the cloth ere you see it again; and the chandler--he be no better than the rest--he will make you his wares of stinking offal that will splutter and run over, and do aught but give good light; and the vintner, marry, who knoweth not his tricks and knaveries of mixing and blending, and the selling of poison instead of honest liquor? The rogue butcher, too, he will let the blood soak in, ay, and puff wind into the meat--meat, quotha!--'tis as like as not to have been found dead in a ditch!"

"A bad case indeed, good Matthew, if they be all preying on each other so."

"'Tis the poor man pays for all, zur. Though how he liveth to pay no man can tell; what with the landlords racking the rents, and inclosing the commons and pasturages--nay, 'tis a n.o.ble pastime the making of parks and warrens, and shutting the poor man out that used to have his cow there and a pig or two; but no, now shall he not let a goose stray within the fence. And what help hath the poor man? May he go to the lawyers, with their leases and clauses that none can understand--ay, and their fists that must be well greased ere they set to the business? 'Tis the poor man pays for all, zur, I warrant ye; nor must he grumble when the gentleman goes a-hunting and breaks down his hedges and tramples his corn. Corn? 'Tis the last thing they think of, beshrew me else! They are busiest of all in sending our good English grain--ay, and our good English beef and bacon and tallow--beyond the seas; and to bring back what?--baubles of gla.s.s beads and amber, fans for my ladies, and new toys from Turkey! The proud dames--I would have their painted faces scratched!"

"What, what, good Matthew?" Judith's father said, laughing. "What know you of the city ladies and their painting?"

"Nay, nay, zur, the London tricks be spread abroad, I warrant ye; there's not a farmer's wife nowadays but must have her french-hood, and her daughter a taffeta cap--marry, and a grogram gown lined through with velvet. And there be other towns in the land than London to learn the London tricks; I have heard of the dames and their daughters; set them up with their pinching and girding with whalebone, to get a small waist withal!--ay, and the swallowing of ashes and candles, and whatever will spoil their stomach, to give them a pale bleak color. Lord, what a thing 'tis to be rich and in the fashion!--let the poor man suffer as he may.

Corn, i' faith!--there be plenty of corn grown in the land, G.o.d wot; but 'tis main too dear for the poor man; the rack-rents for him, and a murrain on him; the corn for the forestallers and the merchants and gentlemen, that send it out of the country; and back come the silks and civets for proud madam and her painted crew!"

"G.o.d have mercy on us, man!" Judith's father exclaimed, and he drove him aside, and got out into the sunlight. At the same moment he caught sight of Judith herself.

"Come hither, wench, come hither!" he called to her.

She was nothing loath. She had merely been taking some sc.r.a.ps to the Don; and seeing Matthew in possession there, she had not even stayed to look into the summer-house. But when her father came out and called to her, she went quickly toward him; and her eyes were bright enough, on this bright morning.

"What would you, father?"

For answer he plucked off her cap and threw it aside, and took hold of her by a bunch of her now loosened and short sun-brown curls.

"Father!" she protested (but with no great anger). "There be twenty minutes' work undone!"

"Where bought you those roses?" said he, sternly. "Answer me, wench!"

"I bought no roses, father!"

"The paint? Is't not painted? Where got you such a face, madam?"

"Father, you have undone my hair; and the parson is coming to dinner."

"Nay, I'll be sworn 'tis as honest a face as good Mother Nature ever made. This goodman Matthew hath belied you!"

"What said he of me?" she asked, with a flash of anger in her eyes.

Her father put his hand on her neck, and led her away.

"Nay, nay, come thy ways, la.s.s; thou shalt pick me a handful of raspberries. And as for thine hair, let that be as G.o.d made it; 'tis even better so; and yet, methinks"--here he stopped, and pa.s.sed his hand lightly once or twice over her head, so that any half-imprisoned curls were set free--"methinks," said he, regarding the pretty hair with considerable favor, "if you would as lief have some ornament for it, I saw that in London that would answer right well. 'Twas a net-work kind of cap; but the netting so fine you could scarce see it; and at each point a bead of gold. Now, Madame Vanity, what say you to that? Would you let your hair grow free as it is now, and let the sunlight play with it, were I to bring thee a fairy cap all besprinkled with gold?"

"I will wear it any way you wish, father, and right gladly," said she, "and I will have no cap at all if it please you."

"Nay, but you shall have the gossamer cap, wench; I will not forget it when next I go to London."

"I would you had never to go to London again," said she, rather timidly.

He regarded her for a second with a scrutinizing look, and there was an odd sort of smile on his face.

"Why," said he, "I was but this minute writing about a man that had to use divers arts and devices for the attainment of a certain end--yea, and devices that all the world would not approve of, perchance; and that was ever promising to himself that when the end was gained he would put aside these spells and tricks, and be content to live as other men live, in a quiet and ordinary fashion. Wouldst have me live ever in Stratford, good la.s.s?"

"The life of the house goes out when you go away from us," said she, simply.

"Well, Stratford is no wilderness," said he, cheerfully; "and I have no bitter feud with mankind that I would live apart from them. Didst ever think, wench," he added, more absently, "how sad a man must have been ere he could speak so:

'Happy were he could finish forth his fate In some unhaunted desert, most obscure From all societies, from love and hate Of worldly folk; then might he sleep secure; Then wake again, and ever give G.o.d praise, Content with hips and haws and brambleberry; In contemplation spending all his days, And change of holy thoughts to make him merry; Where, when he dies, his tomb may be a bush, Where harmless robin dwells with gentle thrush.'"

"Is it that you are writing now, father?"

"Nay, indeed," said he, slowly, and a cloud came over his face. "That was written by one that was my good friend in by-gone days; by one that was betrayed and done to death by lying tongues, and had but sorry favor shown him in the end by those he had served."

He turned away. She thought she heard him say, "My n.o.ble Ess.e.x," but she was mutely following him. And then he said:

"Come, la.s.s; come pick me the berries."

He kept walking up and down, by himself, while her nimble fingers were busy with the bushes; and when she had collected a sufficiency of the fruit, and brought it to him, she found that he appeared to be in no hurry this morning, but was now grown cheerful again, and rather inclined to talk to her. And she was far from telling him that her proper place at this moment was within-doors, to see that the maids were getting things forward; and if she bestowed a thought of any kind on the good parson, it was to the effect that both he and the dinner would have to wait. Her father had hold of her by the arm. He was talking to her of all kinds of things, as they slowly walked up and down the path, but of his friends in Stratford mostly, and their various ways of living; and this she conceived to have some reference to his project of withdrawing altogether from London, and settling down for good among them. Indeed, so friendly and communicative was he on this clear morning--in truth, they were talking like brother and sister--that when at last he went into the summer-house, she made bold to follow; and when he chanced to look at some sheets lying on the table, she said:

"Father, what is the story of the man with the devices?"

For an instant he did not understand what she meant; then he laughed.