A Gentleman Player; His Adventures on a Secret Mission for Queen Elizabeth. Robert Neilson Stephens
He flung into a kneeling posture, at her small, beribboned, cloth-shod feet.
"I am your Majesty's most loyal, most worshipful subject," he said.
"And what the devil are you doing here?" asked Queen Elizabeth.
CHAPTER III.
QUEEN AND WOMAN.
"And commanded
By such poor passion as the maid that milks."
—Antony and Cleopatra.
Though Queen Elizabeth often swore at her ladies and her favorite lords, it is not to be supposed that she would ordinarily address a stranger in such terms as she used but now toward Master Marryott.16 Nor was it the surprise of finding asleep in her garden a youth, wearing an apprentice's surcoat over a gentleman's velvet doublet—for Hal had moved in his sleep so as to disclose part of the doublet—and silken hose, that evoked so curt an expression. Neither was it the possibility that the intruder might be another Capt. Thomas Leigh, who had been found lurking in the palace, near the door of the privy chamber, a day or two after the Essex rising, and had been subsequently put to death. Had a thought of assassination taken any root in the queen's mind at sight of the slumbering youth, she would, doubtless, have behaved as on a certain occasion at the time of the Babington conspiracy; when, walking in her garden, and being suddenly approached by one of the conspirators, and finding none of her guards within sight, she held the intruder in so intrepid a look that he shrank back—and the captain of her guard did not soon forget the rating she afterward gave him for that she had been left thus exposed. But on the present occasion she herself had petulantly ordered back the little train of gentlemen and ladies in waiting, guards, and pages, who would have followed her into the alley where she now was. They stood in separate groups, beyond the tall hedge, out of view but not out of call, and wondering what had put her majesty this morning into such a choleric desire for solitude. For that is what she was in, and what made her words to Hal so unlike those commonly used by stage royalty at the theatre.
What the devil was he doing there? Hal asked himself, as he gazed helplessly up at the queen. "I know not," he faltered. "I mean, I have no memory of coming hither. But 'tis not the first time, your majesty, I have waked up in a strange place and wondered at being there. I—I drank late last night."
He put his hand to his aching head, in a manner that unconsciously confirmed his confession; and then he looked at his coarse surcoat with an amazement that the queen could not doubt.
"What is your name?" asked the queen, who seemed to have her own reason for interrogating him quietly herself, instead of calling a guard and turning him over to some officer for examination.
"Harry Marryott, an it please your Majesty. A player in the lord chamberlain's company, though a gentleman by birth."
Elizabeth frowned slightly at the mention of the lord chamberlain's company; but a moment after, strange to say, there came into her face the sign of a sudden secret hope and pleasure.
"Being one of those players," said she, "you are well-wisher to the foolish men who partook in the late treason?" She watched narrowly for his answer.
"Not well-wisher to their treason, madam, I swear!"
"But to themselves?"
"As to men who have been our friends, we wish some of them whatever good may consist with your Majesty's own welfare, which is the welfare of England, the happiness of your subjects. But that wish makes no diminution of our loyalty, which for myself I would give my life for a chance of proving." He found it not difficult to talk to this queen, so human was she, so outright, direct, and to the point.
"Why," she replied, in a manner half careless, half significant, as if she were trying her way to some particular issue, "who knows but you may yet have that chance, and at the same time fulfil a kind wish toward one of those misguided plotters. An you were to be trusted—but nay, your presence here needs some accounting for. Dig your memory, man; knock your brains, and recall how you came hither. Tis worth while, youth, for you doubtless know what is supposed of men found unaccountably near our person, and what end is made of them."
Hal was horrified and heartstricken. "Madam," he murmured, "if my queen, who is the source and the object of all chivalrous thoughts in every gentleman's breast in England, one moment hold it possible that I am here for any purpose against her, let me die! Call guards, your Majesty, and have me slain!"
"Nay," said Elizabeth, convinced and really touched by his feeling, "I spoke not of what I thought, but of what others might infer. Now that I perceive your quality, it hath come to me that you might serve me in a business that needs such a man—a man not known at court, and whom it would appear impossible I could have given audience to. Indeed, I was pondering on the difficulty of finding such a man in the time afforded, and in no very sweet humor either, when the sight of you broke in upon my thoughts."
"To serve your Majesty in any business would be my supremest joy," said Hal, eagerly—and truly. His feeling in this was that of all young English gentlemen of his time.
"But this tells me not how came you into my private garden," said her Majesty.
"I remember some dispute at the Devil tavern," replied Harry, searching his memory. "And roaming the streets with one Captain Bottle, and being chased out of some neighborhood or other—and there I lose myself. It seems as if I went lugging forward through the streets, holding to an arm on either side, and then plunged quite out of this world, into cloud, or blackness, or nothing. Why, it is strange—meseems yonder workman, at the end of this alley, had some part in my goings last night."
The workman was a carpenter, engaged in erecting a wooden framework for an arched hedge that was to meet at right angles the alley in which the queen and Harry were. The man's work had brought him but now into their sight.
The queen, who on occasion could be the most ceremonial monarch in Christendom, could, when necessary, be the most matter-of-fact. She now gave a "hem" not loud enough for her unseen attendants to hear, but sufficient to attract the carpenter's attention. He stood as if petrified, recognizing the queen, then fell upon knees that the presence of Majesty had caused to quake. Elizabeth motioned him to her, and he approached, walking on his knees, in expectation of being instantly turned over to a yeoman of the guard. Hal himself remained in similar posture, which was the attitude Elizabeth required of all who addressed her.
"What know you of this young gentleman?" she asked the carpenter, in a tone that commanded like quietness in his manner of replying.
The fellow cringed and shook, begged huskily for mercy, and said that he had meant no harm; explained incoherently that the young gentleman, having fallen in with the carpenters when in his cups, had come with them to Whitehall in the belief that they were leading him to a drinking-place; that they had been curious to see his surprise when the porters, guards, or palace officers should confront him; that these functionaries had inattentively let him pass as one of the carpenters; that the carpenters had feared to disclaim him after having missed the proper moment for doing so. The fellow then began whimpering about his wife and eight children, who would starve if he were hanged or imprisoned. The queen cut him short by ordering that he and his comrades should say nothing of this young man's presence, as they valued their lives; hinted at dire penalties in case of any similar misdemeanor in future, and sent him back to his work.
"God's death!" she then said to Hal. "Watchful porters and officers! I'll find those to blame, and they shall smart for their want of eyes. A glance at your hose and shoes, muddy though they be, would have made you out no workman. Yet perchance I shall have cause not to be sorry for their laxity this once. If it be that you are the man to serve me, I shall think you God-sent to my hand, for God he knows 'twas little like I should find in mine own palace a man not known there, and whom it should not seem possible I might ever have talked withal! Even had I sent for such an one, or had him brought to the palace for secret audience, there had needs