William Shakespeare as he lived Part 23

"From whom and whence?" said Sir Hugh. "Methinks I had rather defer matters of business till another opportunity. There be many sealed letters I have received the last two days now lying in the hall, and which I have no heart to open or peruse; for what have I to do with affairs of the world? what interest have I in life or its businesses?"

"Nevertheless," said Martin, "this commission must be read, inasmuch as it cometh from one whose behests are to be obeyed. 'Tis from the Queen; and if I mistake not, Her Majesty requires your instant employment in her service. There is work to be done with spur and rapier, and you must undertake it."

"Nay then," said the knight, whose ardour was in a moment aroused at the prospect of military duty, "there never yet was a Clopton found wanting when he should serve his sovereign in the field: mine eyes are somewhat dim, good Martin, peruse the letter, and give me the substance of its contents."

"In how long a time," said Martin, after glancing at the letter, the contents of which he well knew, "can you be ready to set forth from hence, good master mine?"

"As soon as steed is saddled and led forth, and weapon girded on, I am prepared to mount," said Sir Hugh, "what other preparation doth a soldier want, good Martin?" "Alas!" he continued, looking round, "I have now nothing here to take leave of; nothing to care for. In the world I am nothing, and unless Her Majesty's services require continuance of my life, 'twere better I were gathered to my forefathers." Thus then was Sir Hugh, through the instrumentality of Martin, dispatched forthwith to join the expedition under the Earl of Leicester against the Spaniards.

He came up with the Earl just as he had sat down before Zutphen, where the circ.u.mstance of war and the bustle of the camp, in a great measure alleviated the sorrows of the good old man.

With Walter Arderne, however, Martin had a more difficult part to play.

He thought it wise to separate the uncle and nephew, because the constant sight of each other only served to remind them of their loss.

He therefore, after the knight's departure, urged upon Walter the necessity there was for his not wearing out his youth in shapeless idleness. "There be many ways for a man to rise to distinction in the world at the present moment," said Martin, "and let ambition be now your mistress, good Walter."

"Alas!" said Arderne, "thou canst not feel for me, good friend, because thou hast never felt the desolation I feel. Ambition and all other pa.s.sions are dead within me."

"Go to," said Martin. "Men that live _in_ the world must be _of_ the world. The health of the mind is of far more consequence to us than the health of the body. The Ardernes were never yet drivellers. Go forth, man, like your forefathers. I in some sort feel anguish of mind, as well as thou; but I give not way to it. Afflictions are sent by Providence.

Let your head contrive and your hand execute, and you will forget your particular griefs in blows given and taken; nay, the time is coming when we shall all have to belt on the brand--that I foresee plainly enough.

The Spaniard despises all other nations except the English; we have the honour of his hate because he cannot despise us; and we shall shortly feel the weight of his whole force against us. Of that you may rely."

"And whither, then, would you have me go?" said Arderne. "You objected to my accompanying my uncle; what course do you point out for me, so poor in spirit?"

"Why, look ye," said Martin, "there is an expedition now about to set sail for the purpose of attacking the Spaniards in the Indies. Men's mouths were full of it when I was near the Court. Two thousand three hundred volunteers, besides seamen, are enrolled under Sir Francis Drake. The success of the Spaniards and Portuguese in both Indies, and the wonders seen in these islands, have influenced the imagination of all men of spirit; an I were you, I would join this expedition,--see this new world and its strange inhabitants, and witness the matters said to exist there."

"And when would you have me to depart?" inquired Arderne.

"What time is better than the present?" said Martin. "How long doth the soldier require to get under arms, when he receives the order to fall in?"

"Methinks," said Arderne, "I have many places to visit and take leave of, ere I can quit them, perhaps for ever."

"Take no leave of them at all," said Martin. "When you return, they will be fresh and fairer in your eyes."

"I have one friend, amongst the many I care not to see again, whom I must see and take leave of," said Arderne; "one whom I would fain spend some time with ere we part."

"Know I him?" inquired Martin.

"You have seen him often," said Arderne, "but you know him not. She who is gone knew him and valued him. 'Tis of her I would speak with him."

"'Twere best not," said Martin; "but (sith I do know the friend you speak of,) I cannot object. There is a kind of character in him I never found in other men. To part with such a one without seeing again is, I grant ye, hard. I give ye one day to spend with your friend, and then you must promise to depart for London."

"I promise it," said Arderne, who already felt relief from being, as it were, driven into action,----"I promise it, good friend, and the day after to-morrow I will depart from Clopton,----depart, perhaps, never to return."

"Good!" said Martin; "well-resolved and resolutely! I expect great things of this expedition, and thy conduct in it. You are just the age to adventure. In youth, we are apt to trust ourselves overmuch; and others too little when old. At thy time of life thou art just between the two extremes. The proper season for action; _ergo_, thou wilt thrive."

It was evening when this conversation took place at Clopton, and gloom and melancholy still reigned supreme there. Perhaps the feelings of Martin and his young friend were even more depressed, inasmuch as they had a melancholy task to perform ere they left the place.

The good old servant, who we have before seen in attendance upon Charlotte, either from over-exertion or want of rest, had fallen sick just before her charge died. It was supposed at the time that she had taken the plague; such, however, was not the case, as she lingered on for some days after the young lady's death, and died at last, apparently of grief for the loss of her favourite mistress.

Before the death of this old domestic, she had requested of Martin that she might be buried in the vault with her beloved young mistress: and the request having been acceded to, this very evening was fixed on for the funeral. Arderne paced up and down the room (after the conversation we have just recorded) for some time in silence. He then turned to Martin. "I have been thinking deeply of what you just now urged to me,"

he said. "The force of it is so impressed upon my mind, that I am resolved at once to take my departure from Clopton. The place seems, since my resolve, to be hateful to me. To-night I will go forth; for since this matter has gone so far, I cannot bear again to sleep at Clopton."

"'Tis well," said Martin; "just as I would advise."

"And this friend?" said Arderne, "in whom I am so much interested. Thou likest him not, or I would bid thee tell him in how much I feel desirous of serving him; and that I commend him to thy especial favour."

"How know you I like not that youth?" said Martin. "I never said so, did I?"

"I surmised it from your manner," said Arderne. "You seemed to look askance upon him, as it were."

"Perhaps I had my own reasons for such seeming," said Martin; "and if I had so, those reasons are now naught. There is no farther cause for them. Believe me, he you call your friend, is one who, if I mistake not, will some day rise to great eminence. And he live to any age, the world will hear something of him, for he hath the brains of half a score of us common mortals, with all his modest look, and beardless cheek."

"Then to you I will intrust the task of saying farewell to him," said Arderne, "for, methinks, on reflection, it will but aggravate my feelings to see him again, since I am so suddenly to depart."

"Be it so," said Martin; "I accept the office."

"In one hour, then, we will say adieu, good friend," said Arderne, wringing Martin's hand. "This night I would fain dedicate to her we both loved; to-morrow shall find me far from Clopton."

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE VAULT.

It is night, and the moon sheds a pale and sickly light over the silent streets of Stratford-upon-Avon, and the surrounding meadows and woodlands.

Is it that the idea of pestilence and death being rife in that silent town gives its streets so sickly and melancholy a look--a sort of unnatural and unwholesome glare--or is the surrounding air, impregnated as it seems with disease, of a more rarified and peculiar character?

The square, thick-ribbed, and embattled tower of the guild of the Holy Cross, with its Norman windows and grotesque ornaments, alone looks dark in shadow. The streets and windows of the various houses seem to glance white and spectral. The tower of the distant church hath a ghastly look, and the very tombstones of the dead seem also more white and ghostly; whilst a thick mist from the river rises like a cloud in the background.

Silence reigns supreme. Not a breath of wind stirs the foliage of the trees upon the margin of the river, or bends the long dank gra.s.s growing amongst the graves.

Suddenly the distant sound of a horse's hoof-tread disturbs the deep silence, and a solitary horseman, riding through the deserted streets of the town, approached the churchyard, and dismounting, after fastening his steed, entered it.

He takes his way slowly and with measured tread towards a vault attached to the church. His cheek is pale and haggard, and the large round tears course one another down it. It is Walter Arderne; he has come to spend the last hours he intends remaining in the vicinity of Stratford, beside the vault containing the remains of his beloved Charlotte.

The plague which raged in Stratford this year was now at its height.

Already one-fifth of the inhabitants had fallen victims; and it was the custom, as much as possible, to bury the dead un.o.bserved at night.

The remains of the domestic who had died at Clopton Hall were to be buried on this night after midnight; and as Walter Arderne knew the hour, he had preceded the corpse, intending to descend into the vault and gaze upon the remains of her he had so loved in life.

His feelings were, indeed, at the moment, wrought to a pitch of intensity. He felt that he could scarcely wait with patience for the coming of the body and the opening of the vault, so eager was he to descend.

"O Time," he said, as with folded arms, he stood gazing at the dark grating of the vault, "thy wings are of lightning in our pleasures; but thou creepest with feet of lead to the sorrowful and weary. And yet thou, who dost constantly move onwards, overcoming all things in thy flight, wilt at last conquer even death itself; thou, most subtle and insatiable of depredators, wilt at last take all."

A heavy rumbling sound interrupted the meditation of the mourner. It was the vehicle containing the body of the domestic from Clopton, and which, in its progress, had gathered up other bodies in the town on that night to be interred.