A Gentleman Player Part 4

"'Scaped by an inch," said Hal, with a hiccough. "Marry, is this thy welcome?"

Kit's wrath against the inmates of the house now exploded. Calling them "scullions," "scavengers," and names still less flattering, he began kicking and hammering on the door as if to break it down. Moved by the spirit of violence, Hal joined him in this demonstration. The upper windows opened, and voices began screaming "Murder!" and "Thieves!" In a short time several denizens of the neighborhood--which was a neighborhood of nocturnal habits--appeared in the street. Seeing how matters stood, they fell upon Kit and Hal, mauling the pair with fists, and tearing off their outer garments.

Soon a cry went up, "The watch!" whereupon Hal, with memories of restraint and inconvenience to which he had once before been put, called upon Kit to follow, and made a dash toward the end of the street. He speedily was out of pursuit, and the sound of Bottle's voice growling out objurgations, close behind him, satisfied him that the old soldier was at his heels. Hal, therefore, ran on, making no impediment of the bars, and pa.s.sed the Pens without slack of speed. Stopping in Cow Lane he looked back, and to his surprise saw that he was now quite alone.

He went immediately back over his tracks in search of Bottle, but found no one. Turnbull Street had subsided into its former outward appearance of desertion. Thinking that Bottle might have pa.s.sed him in the darkness, Hal returned southward. When he arrived in Fleet Street he retained but a confused, whirling recollection of what had occurred. Yet his mood was still for company and carouse. With great joy, therefore, he observed that a humble little ale-house to which he sometimes resorted, near Fleet Bridge, was opening for the day, as dawn was appearing. He went in and ordered wine.

The tapster, who knew him, remarked with astonishment that he was without hat or cloak; and the morning being very cold, and Hal unlikely to meet any person of quality at that hour, the fellow offered him a surcoat and cap, such as were worn by apprentices, to protect him from chill on the way homeward. Hal, who was now half comatose, pa.s.sively let himself be thus fortified against the weather. With the sum repaid him by Bottle he was able to buy good cheer; his only lack was of company to share it with. He could not hope at this hour to fall in with another late-hour man; it was now time for the early rising folk to be abroad.

In from the street came half a dozen hardy looking fellows, calling for beer to be quickly drawn, as they had far to go to their work. Their dress was of leather and coa.r.s.e cloth, and the tools they carried were those of carpenters. But to Hal, who now saw things vaguely, they were but fellow mortals, and thirsty. He welcomed them with a flourish and an imperative invitation to drink. This they readily accepted, grinning the while with boorish amus.e.m.e.nt. When they perforce departed, Hal, unwilling to lose new-found company so soon, attached himself to them; and was several times hindered from dragging them into taverns as they pa.s.sed, by their promise, given with winks invisible to him, that they would drink on arriving at their destination.

So he went, upheld between a pair of them, and heeding not the way they took. Though it was now daylight, he was past recognizing landmarks. He had the dimmest sense of pa.s.sing a succession of walled and turreted mansions at his left hand; then of catching glimpses of more open and park-like s.p.a.ces at his right hand; of going, in a grave kind of semi-stupor, through two gateways and as many courtyards; of being pa.s.sed on, with the companions to whom he clung, by dull warders, and by a busy, inattentive, pompous man of authority to whom his comrades reported in a body; of traversing with them, at last, a pa.s.sage and a kind of postern, and emerging in a great garden. Here the carpenters seemed to become sensible of having committed a serious breach in sportively letting him be admitted as one of their own band. They held a brief consultation, looking around in a half frightened way to see if they were observed. They finally led him into an alley, formed by hedgerows, deposited him gently on the ground, and hastened off to another part of the garden. Once rec.u.mbent, he turned upon his side and went instantly to sleep.

When he awoke, several hours later, without the least knowledge what garden was this to which his eyes opened, or the least recollection how he had come into it, he saw, looking down at him in mild surprise, a slight, yellow-haired, pale-faced, high-browed, dark-eyed, elderly lady, with a finely curved nose, a resolute mouth, and a sharp chin, and wearing a tight-bodied, wide-skirted costume of silvered white velvet and red silk, with a gold-laced, ermine-trimmed mantle, and a narrow, peaked velvet hat. Hal, in his first bewilderment, wondered where it was that he had previously seen this lady.

"Madam," he said, in a voice husky with cold, "I seem to be an intruder. By your favor, what place is this?"

The lady looked at him sharply for a moment, then answered, simply:

"'Tis the garden of Whitehall palace. Who are you?"

Hal suppressed a startled exclamation. He remembered now where he had seen the lady: 'twas at the Christmas court performances. 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 pa.s.sion 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 Ess.e.x rising, and had been subsequently put to death.

Had a thought of a.s.sa.s.sination 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 coa.r.s.e 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 att.i.tude 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 pa.s.s 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.

"G.o.d'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 G.o.d-sent to my hand, for G.o.d 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 been more trace left of my meeting him than there need be of my meeting you."

Hal perceived not why so absolute a monarch need conduct any matter darkly, or hide traces of her hand in it; but he said nothing, save that, if it might fall his happy lot to serve her, the gift from G.o.d would be to himself.

As for the queen, she had already made up her mind that he should serve her. It must be he, or no one. She had come to the garden from her privy council, with a certain secret act in her mind, an act possible to her if the right agent could be found; but in despair of finding in the given time such an agent,--one through whom her own instigation of the act could never be traced by the smallest circ.u.mstance. Here, as if indeed dropped from heaven, was a possible agent having that most needed, least expected, qualification. There need not remain the slightest credible evidence of his present interview with her. This qualification found so unexpectedly, without being sought, she was willing to risk that the young player possessed the other requisites, uncommon though they were. She believed he was loyal and chivalrous; therefore he would be as likely to keep her secret, at any hazard to himself, as to serve her with all zeal and with as much skill as he could command. By seeming to hold back her decision as to whether he might do her errand, she but gave that errand the more importance, and whetted his ambition to serve her in it.

"There is much to be said," replied the queen, "and small time to say it in. 'Tis already some minutes since I left my people without the hedge and came into this alley. They will presently think I am long meditating alone. They must not know I have seen you, or that you were here. So we must needs speak swiftly and quietly. As for those carpenters, who are all that know of your presence here. I have thrown that fellow into so great a fear, he and his mates will keep silence. Now heed. My privy council hath evidence of a certain gentleman's part in the conspiracy of your friends who abetted the Lord Ess.e.x. 'Tis evidence positive enough, and plenty enough, to take off his head, or twenty heads an he had them. He hath not the slightest knowledge that he is betrayed. 'Tis very like he sits at home, in the country, thinking himself secure, while the warrant is being writ for his arrest. The pursuivant to execute the warrant is to set out with men this afternoon. So much delay have I contrived to cause."

"Delay, your Majesty?" echoed Hal, thinking he might have wrongly heard.

"Delay," repeated Elizabeth, using for her extraordinary disclosures a quite ordinary tone. "I have delayed this messenger of the council for time to plan how the gentleman may escape before the arrest can be made."

She waited a moment, till Hal's look pa.s.sed back from surprise to careful attention.

"You wonder that a queen, who may command all, should use secret means in such a matter. You wonder that I did not put my prohibition, at the outset, on proceedings against this gentleman. Or that I do not now order them stopped, by my sovereign right. Or that I do not openly pardon him, now or later. You do not see, young sir, that sometimes a monarch, though all-powerful, may have reason to sanction or even command a thing, yet have deep-hidden reason why the thing should be undone."

Hal bowed. He had little knowledge, or curiosity, regarding the mysteries of state affairs, and easily believed that the general weal might be promoted by the queen's outwardly authorizing a subject's arrest, and then secretly compa.s.sing his escape. And yet he might have known that a Tudor's motives in interfering with the natural course of justice were more likely to be private than public, and that a Tudor's circ.u.mstances must be unusual indeed to call for clandestine means, rather than an arbitrary mandate, for such interference. It was not till long afterward that, by putting two and two together, he formed the theory which it is perhaps as well to set forth now, at the opening of our history.