The Panchronicon Part 49

"Him as wore the long white beard," said the boy. "The Jew, to wit. Eh, but a got his cess, the runnion!"

"Shylock!" she cried, in spite of herself.

So this was the gossiping barn-stormer, the dissolute actor. Will Shakespeare it was with whom her Guy had spent the evening! Phoebe Wise could but capitulate, and Mary Burton took for a time triumphant possession of the heart that was Guy Fenton's.

"Have the players left the Peac.o.c.k?" she asked, eagerly.

"Nay, mistress, know you not that they play to-night at the home of Sir William Percy?"

"Then they are here, at the inn, boy?"

"A saw him that played the Jew i' the garden not a half hour since. He's wont to wander there and mutter the words of the play. I'll warrant him there now, mistress."

Here, indeed, was good fortune! Shakespeare was in the garden. He should tell her where to find Guy that she might warn him. Quickly she turned away and hurried out of the yard and around the north L, beyond which was the garden, laid out with ancient hedges and long beds of old-fashioned flowers.

Now this same garden was the chief pride of the neighborhood, the more especially that gardens were but seldom found attached to inns in those days. Here there had been a partly successful attempt to imitate Italian landscape gardening; but the elaborately arranged paths, beds, and parterres, with their white statues and fountains, lost their effectiveness closed in as they were by high walls of vine-covered brick. It was rumored that once a stately peac.o.c.k had here once flaunted his gorgeous plumage, giving his name to the inn itself--but this legend rested upon little real evidence.

When Phoebe reached the entrance to the main walk she stopped and looked anxiously about her. Nowhere could she see or hear anyone. Sadly disappointed, she moved slowly forward, glancing quickly to right and left, still hoping that he whom she sought had not utterly departed.

She reached a small stone basin surmounted by a statue of Plenty, whose inverted horn suggested a copious stream long since choked up. Behind the fountain there was a stone bench with a high back. Peeping behind this, Phoebe found that a second seat was placed beyond the back, inviting a seclusion whose expected purpose was distinctly suggested by a sly little Cupid on a pedestal, holding one forefinger to his smiling lips.

At this moment Phoebe was conscious of a distant mumbling to her left, and, glancing quickly in that direction, she saw a plainly dressed, bareheaded man of medium height just turning into the main walk out of a by-path, where he had been hidden from view by a thick hedge of privet.

His eyes were turned upon some slips of paper which he held in one hand.

Could this be he? Shakespeare! The immortal Prince of Poets!

To Mary Burton, the approach of a mere player would have given little concern. But Phoebe Wise, better knowing his unrivalled rank, was seized with a violent attack of diffidence, and in an instant she dodged behind the stone seat and sat in hiding with a beating heart.

The steps of the new-comer slowly approached. Phoebe knew not whether pleasure or a painful fear were stronger within her. Here was indeed the culmination of her strange adventure! There, beyond the stone which mercifully concealed her, He was approaching--the wondrous Master Mind of literature.

Would he go by unheeding? Could she let him pa.s.s on without one glance--one word? And yet, how address him? How dare to show her face?

The slow steps ceased and at the same time he fell silent. She could picture him gazing with unconscious eyes at the fountain while within he listened to the Genius that prompted his majestic works. Again the gravel creaked, and then she knew that he had seated himself on the other bench. The two were sitting back to back with only a stone part.i.tion between them.

To her own surprise, the diffidence which had oppressed her seemed now to be gradually pa.s.sing off. She still realized the privilege she enjoyed in thus sharing his seat, but perhaps Mary Burton was gaining her head as well as her heart, for she positively began to think of leaving her concealment, contemplating almost unmoved a meeting with her demi-G.o.d.

Then he spoke.

"The infant first--then the school-boy," he muttered. "So far good! The third age--m--m--m--" There was a pause before he proceeded, slowly and distinctly:

"Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing his heart out in a woful ballad--

m--m--m--Ah!--

Made to his mistress' eyebrow."

He chuckled audibly a moment, and then, speaking a little louder:

"Fenton to the life, poor lad!" he said.

Phoebe sat up very straight with a startled movement. Oh, to think of it! That she should have forgotten Sir Guy! To have sought Will Shakespeare for the sole purpose of tracing her threatened lover--and then to forget him for a simple name--a mere celebrity!

Unconscious of the small inward drama so near at hand, the playwright proceeded with his composition.

"'Sighing his heart out,'" he mused. "Nay, that were too strong a touch for Jacques. Lighter--lighter." Then, after a moment of thought: "Ay--ay!" he chuckled. "'Sighing like furnace'--poor Fenton! How like a very furnace in his dolor! Yet did he justice to the Canary. So--so! To go back now:

"Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace with a woful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow."

'Twill pa.s.s, in sooth, 'twill pa.s.s!"

Lightly Phoebe climbed onto the bench and peeped over the back. She looked down sidewise upon the author, who was writing rapidly in an illegible hand upon one of his paper slips.

There was the head so familiar to us all--the domelike brow, the long hair hanging over the ears. This she could see, but of his face only the outline of his left cheek was visible. Strange and unexpected to herself was the light-hearted calm with which, now that she really saw him, she could contemplate the great poet.

He ceased writing and leaned against the back, gazing straight ahead.

"The third age past, what then? Why the soldier, i' faith--the soldier----"

"Full of strange oaths"

came a mischievous whisper from an invisible source--

"and bearded like the pard.

Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth."

For a moment the poet sat as though paralyzed with astonishment. Then rising, he turned and faced the daring girl.

Now she saw the face so well remembered and yet how little known before.

Round it was and smooth, save for the small, well-trimmed mustache above the beautifully moulded mouth and chin--sensitive yet firm. But above all, the splendid eyes! Eyes of uncertain color that seemed to Phoebe mirrors of universal life, yet just now full of a perplexed admiration.

For she was herself the centre of a picture well fitted to arrest a poet's attention. Her merry face was peering over the smooth white stone, with four pink finger-tips on each side clinging for greater security. Behind her a cherry-tree was dropping its snowy blossoms, and two or three had fallen unheeded upon her wavy brown hair, making a charming frame for the young eyes and tender lips whose smiling harmony seemed to sing with arrant roguishness.

With a trilling laugh, half-suppressed, she spoke at last.

"A penny for your thoughts, Master Shakespeare!" she said.

The mood of the astonished player had quickly yielded to the girl's compelling smile, and his fine lips opened upon a firm line of teeth.

"'Show me first your penny,'" he quoted.