"I'll owe you it."

He laughed and shook his head.

"That would I not my thoughts, damsel."

"Pay them, then. Pay straightway!" she pouted, "and see the account be fair."

"Nay, then," he replied, bowing half-mockingly, "an the accountant be so pa.s.sing fair, must not the account suffer in the comparison?"

The face disappeared for a moment, and then Phoebe emerged from behind the stone rampart, dusting her hands off daintily one against the other.

"Did not your wit exceed your gallantry, sir," she said, courtesying slightly, "I had had my answer sooner."

Shakespeare was somewhat taken aback to see a developed young woman, evidently of gentle birth, where he had thought to find the mere prank-loving child of some neighboring cottager. Instantly his manner changed. Bowing courteously, he stepped forward and began in a deferential voice:

"Nay, then, fair mistress, an I had known----"

"Tut--tut!" she interrupted, astonished at her own boldness. "You thought me a chit, sir. Let it pa.s.s. Pray what think you of my lines?"

"They seemed the whisper of a present muse," he said, gayly, but with conviction in his voice. "'Twas in the very mood of Jacques, my lady--a melancholy fellow by profession----"

"Holding that light which another might presently approve"--she broke in--"and praise bestowing on ill deserts in the mere wantonness of a cynic wit! What!--doth the cap fit?"

The amazement in her companion's face was irresistible, and Phoebe burst forth into a spontaneous laugh of purest merriment.

"'A hit--a hit--a very palpable hit!'" she quoted, clapping her hands in her glee.

"Were not witches an eldritch race," said Shakespeare, "you, mistress, might well lie under grave suspicion."

"What--what! Do I not fit the wizened stamp of Macbeth's sisters three?"

Shakespeare flung out his arms with a gesture of despair.

"Yet more and deeper mystery!" he cried. "My half-formed plots--half-finished sc.r.a.ps--the clear a.n.a.lysis of souls whose only life is here!" he tapped his forehead. "Say, good lady, has Will Shakespeare spoken, perchance, in sleep--yet e'en so, how could----"

He broke off and coming to her side, spoke earnestly in lowered tones.

"Tell me. Have you the fabled power to read the soul? Naught else explains your speech."

"Tell me, sir, first the truth," said Phoebe. "In all sadness, Master Shakespeare, have you had aught from Francis Bacon? I mean by way of aid in writing--or e'en of mere suggestion?"

"Bacon--Francis Bacon," said he, evidently at a loss. "There was one Nicholas Bacon----"

"Nay, 'tis of his son I speak."

"Then, in good sooth, I can but answer 'No,' mistress; since that I knew not even that this Nicholas had a son."

Phoebe heaved a sigh of relief and then went on with a partial return of her former spirit.

"Then all's well!" she exclaimed. "I am a muse well pleased; and now, an you will, I'll teach you straight more verses for your play."

"As you like it," said Shakespeare, bowing, half-amused and wholly mystified.

"Good!" she retorted, brightly. "'As You Like It' shall you name the piece, that henceforth this our conversation you may bear in mind."

Smiling, he took up his papers and wrote across the top of one of them "As You Like It" in large characters.

"Now write as I shall bid you," Phoebe said. "Pray be seated, good my pupil, come."

Then, seated there by Phoebe's side, the poet committed to paper the whole of Jacques's speech on "The Seven Ages," just as Phoebe spoke it from her memory of the Shakespeare club at home.

When he ceased scribbling, he leaned forward with elbows on his knees and ran his eyes slowly and wonderingly over each line in turn, whispering the words destined to become so famous. Phoebe leaned a little away from her companion, resting one hand on the bench, while she watched his face with a smile that slowly melted to the mood of dreamy meditation. They sat thus alone in silence for some time, so still that a wren, alighting on the path, hopped pecking among the stones at their very feet.

At length the poet, without other change in position, turned his head and looked searchingly and seriously into the young girl's eyes. What amazing quality was it that stamped its impress upon the maiden's face--a something he had never seen or dreamed of? Even a Shakespeare could give no name to that spirit of the future out of which she had come.

"Is it then true?" he said, in an undertone. "Doth the muse live? Not a mere prompting inward sense, but in bodily semblance visiting the poet's eye? Or art thou a creature of Fancy's colors blended, feigning reality?"

Never before had the glamour of her situation so penetrated her to whom these words were addressed. She was choked by an irrepressible sob that was half a laugh, and a film of moisture obscured her vision. With a sudden movement, she seized the poet's hand and pressed it to her lips.

Then, half-ashamed, she rose and turned away to toy with the foliage of a shrub that stood beside the path.

"Nay, then!" Shakespeare cried, with something like relief in his voice, "you are no insubstantial spirit, damsel. Yet would I fain more clearly comprehend thee!"

There was a minute's pause ere Phoebe turned toward the speaker, that spirit of mischief dancing again in her eyes and on her lips.

"I am Mary Burton, of Burton Hall," she said.

"Oh!" he exclaimed. And then again: "Oh!" with much of understanding and something of disappointment.

"Is all clear now?" she asked, roguishly.

Shakespeare rose, and, shaking one finger playfully at her, he said:

"Most clear is this--that Sir Guy knows well to choose in love; although, an I read you aright, my Mistress Mockery, his wife is like to prove pa.s.sing mettlesome. For the rest, your lover knows poor Will Shakespeare's secrets--his Macbeth and half-written Hamlet. 'Tis with these you have made so bold to-day! My muse, in sooth! Oh, fie--fie!"

And he shook his head, laughing.

"Indeed! In very sooth!" said Phoebe, with merry sarcasm. "And was it, then, Guy who brought me these same lines of Jacques the melancholy?"

And she pointed to the papers in his hand.

"Nay, there I grant you," said the poet, shaking his head, while the puzzled expression crept once more into his face.

"Ay, there, and in more than this!" Phoebe exclaimed. "You have spoken of Hamlet, Master Shakespeare. Guy hath told me something of that tragedy. This Prince of Denmark is a most unhappy wight, if I mistake not. Doth he not once turn to thought of self-murder?"

"Ay, mistress. I have given Sir Guy my thoughts on the theme of Hamlet, and have told him I planned a speech wherein should be made patent Hamlet's desperate weariness of life, sickened by brooding on his mother's infamy."

"'To be or not to be, that is the question,'" quoted Phoebe. "Runs it not so?"

"This pa.s.ses!" cried Shakespeare, once more all amazement. "I told not this to your friend!"

"Nor did I from Guy receive it," said Phoebe. "Tell me, Master Shakespeare, have you yet brought that speech to its term?"