Shakespeare's Christmas and Other Stories. Arthur Quiller-Couch
take boat.... This jolting ill agrees with a man of my weight....
Where many a barge doth sail aund row with are—
Gr-r-r! Did I not warn thee beware, master wagoner, of the kerbstones at the corners? We had done better by water, what though it be dark.... Lights of Bankside on the water ... no such sight in Europe, they tell me.... My Lord of Surrey took boat one night from Westminster and fired into their windows with a stone-bow, breaking much glass ... drove all the long-shore queans screaming into the streets in their night-rails.... He went to the Fleet for it ... a Privy Council matter.... I forgive the lad, for my part: for only think of it—all those windows aflame on the river, and no such river in Europe!—
Where many a barge doth sail and row with are;
Where many a ship doth rest with top-royall.
O towne of townes! patrone and not compare,
London, thou art the flow'r of Cities all!
Who-oop!"
"In the name of——" stammered Nashe, as he listened, Burbage all the while clutching his arm.
"He dropped from the top gallery, I tell you—clean into the pit from the top gallery—and he weighs eighteen stone if an ounce. 'Your servant, Sir, and of all the Muses,' he says, picking himself up; and with that takes the hammer from my hand and plays Pyrrhus in Troy—Pyrrhus with all the ravening Danai behind him: for those hired scoundrels of mine took fire, and started ripping out the bowels of the poor old theatre as though it had been the Fleet and lodged all their cronies within! It went down before my eyes like a sand-castle before the tide. Within three hours they had wiped the earth of it. The Lord be praised that Philip Gosson had ne'er such an arm, nor could command such! Oh, but he's a portent! Troy's horse and Bankes's bay gelding together are a fool to him: he would harness them as Samson did the little foxes, and fire brushwood under their tails...."
"Of a certainty you are drunk, Dick."
"Drunk? I?" Burbage gripped the other's thin arm hysterically. "If you want to see a man drunk come to the gate. Nay, then, stay where you are: for there's no escaping him."
Nor was there. Between them and the wagoners' lanterns at the gate a huge shadow thrust itself, the owner of it rolling like a ship in a sea-way, while he yet recited—
"Strong be thy wallis that about thee standis,
(meaning the Clink, my son),
Wise be the people that within thee dwellis,
(which you may take for the inhabitants thereof),
Fresh is thy ryver with his lusty strandis,
Blith be thy chirches, wele sowning be thy bellis."
"Well sounding is my belly, master, any way," put in a high, thin voice; "and it calls on a gentleman of Warwickshire to redeem his promise."
"He shall, he shall, lad—in the fullness of time: 'but before dining ring at the bell,' says the proverb. Grope, lad, feel along the gate-posts if this yard, this courtlage, this base-court, hath any such thing as bell or knocker.
And when they came to mery Carleile
All in the mornyng tyde-a,
They found the gates shut them until
About on every syde-a.
Then Adam Bell bete on the gates
With strokes great and stronge-a
Step warely, lad. Plague of this forest! Have we brought timber to Sherwood?
With strokes great and stronge-a
The porter marveiled who was thereat,
And to the gates he thronge-a.
They called the porter to counsell,
And wrange his necke in two-a,
And caste him in a depe dungeon,
And took hys keys hym fro-a.
Within! You rascal, there, with the lantern!... Eh? but these be two gentlemen, it appears? I cry your mercy, Sirs."
"For calling us rascals?" Nashe stepped forward. "'T hath been done to me before now, in print, upon as good evidence; and to my friend here by Act of Parliament."
"But seeing you with a common stable-lantern——"
"Yet Diogenes was a gentleman. Put it that, like him, I am searching for an honest man."
"Then we are well met. I' faith we are very well met," responded the countryman, recognising Burbage's grave face and plum-coloured doublet.
"Or, as one might better say, well overtaken," said Burbage.
"Marry, and with a suit. I have some acquaintance, Sir, with members of your honourable calling, as in detail and at large I could prove to you. Either I have made poor use of it or I guess aright, as I guess with confidence, that after the triumph will come the speech-making, and the supper's already bespoken."
"At Nance Witwold's, by the corner of Paris Garden, Sir, where you shall be welcome."
"I thank you, Sir. But my suit is rather for this young friend of mine, to whom I have pledged my word."
"He shall be welcome, too."
"He tells me, Sir, that you are Richard Burbage. I knew your father well, Sir—an honest Warwickshire man: he condescended to my roof and tasted my poor hospitality many a time; and belike you, too, Sir, being then a child, may have done the same: for I talk of prosperous days long since past—nay, so long since that 'twould be a wonder indeed had you remembered me. The more pleasure it gives me, Sir, to find James Burbage's sappy virtues flourishing in the young wood, and by the branch be reminded of the noble stock."
"The happier am I, Sir, to have given you welcome or ever I heard your claim."
"Faith!" said the apprentice to himself, "compliments begin to fly when gentlefolks meet." But he had not bargained to sup in this high company, and the prospect thrilled him with delicious terror. He glanced nervously across the yard, where some one was approaching with another lantern.
"My claim?" the countryman answered Burbage. "You have heard but a part of it as yet. Nay, you have heard none of it, since I use not past hospitalities with old friends to claim a return from their children. My claim, Sir, is a livelier one——"
"Tom Nashe! Tom Nashe!" called a voice, clear and strong and masculine, from the darkness behind the advancing lantern.
"Anon, anon, Sir," quoted Nashe, swinging his own lantern about and mimicking.
"Don't tell me there be yet more wagons arrived?" asked the voice.
"Six, lad—six, as I hope for mercy: and outside the gate at this moment."
"There they must tarry, then, till our fellows take breath to unload 'em. But—six? How is it managed, think you? Has Dick Burbage called out the train-bands to help him? Why, hullo, Dick! What means——" The newcomer's eyes, round with wonder as they rested a moment on Burbage, grew rounder yet as they travelled past him to the countryman. "Father?" he stammered, incredulous.
"Good evening, Will! Give ye good evening, my son! Set down that lantern and embrace me, like a good boy: a good boy, albeit a man of fame. Didst not see me, then, in the theatre this afternoon? Yet was I to the fore there, methinks, and proud to be called John Shakespeare."
"Nay, I was not there; having other fish to fry."
"Shouldst have heard the applause, lad; it warmed your old father's heart. Yet 'twas no more than the play deserved. A very neat, pretty drollery—upon my faith, no man's son could have written a neater!"
"But what hath fetched you to London?"
"Business, business: a touch, too, maybe, of the old homesickness: but business first. Dick Quiney——But pass me the lantern,