A Warwickshire Lad

III

The next day things seem different. One no longer feels afraid, while the memory of Gammer's tales is alluring. Will remembers, too, that greens from the forest were ordered sent to the Sadlers for the making of garlands for the Town Hall revels. Small Willy Shakespeare slipped off from home that afternoon.

Reaching the Sadlers, he stopped on the threshold abashed. The living-room was filled with neighbors come to help-young men, girls, with here and there some older folk-all gathered about a pile of greens in the center of the floor, from which each was choosing his bit, while garlands and wreaths half done lay about in the rushes.

But, though his baby soul dreams it not, there is ever a place and welcome for a chief bailiff's little son. They turn at his entrance, and Mistress Sadler bids him come in; her cousin at her elbow praises his eyes-shade of hazel nut, she calls them. And Gammer, peering to find the cause of interruption and spying him, pushes a stool out from under her feet and curving a yellow, shaking finger, beckons and points him to it. But while doing so, she does not stay her quavering and garrulous recital. He has come, then, in time to hear the tale?

"An' the man, by name of Gosling," Gammer is saying, "dwelt by a churchyard--"

Will Shakespeare slips to his place on the stool.

Hamnet is next to him, Hamnet Sadler who is eight, almost a man grown. Hamnet's cheeks are red and hard and shining, and he stands square and looks you in the face. Hamnet has a fist, too, and has thrashed the butcher's son down by the Rother Market, though the butcher's son is nine.

Here Hamnet nudges Will. What is this he is saying? About Gammer, his very own grandame?

"Ben't no witches," mutters Hamnet to Will. "Schoolmaster says so. Says the like of Gammer's talk is naught but women's tales."

Whereupon Gammer pauses and turns her puckered eyes down upon the two urchins at her knee. Has she heard what her grandson said? Will Shakespeare feels as guilty as if he had been the one to say it.

"Ay, but those are brave words, Hammie," says Gammer, and she wags her sharp chin knowingly; "brave words. An' you shall take the bowl yonder and fetch a round o' pippins from the cellar for us here. Candle? La, you know the way full well. The dusk is hardly fell. Nay, you're not plucking Judith's sleeve, Hammie? You are not a lad to want a sister at elbow? Go, now! What say you, Mistress Snelling? The tale? An' Willy Shakespeare here, all eyes and open mouth for it, too? Ay, but he's the rascalliest sweet younker for the tale. An' where were we? Ay, the fat woman of Brentford had just come to Goodman Gosling's house--

[Illustration: "'Ay, but those are brave words, Hammie,' says Gammer"]

"Come back an' shut the door behind you, Hammie; there's more than a nip to these December gales. I' faith, how the lad drumbles, a clumsy lob--

"As you say, the fat woman of Brentford, one Gossip Pratt by name, an' a two yards round by common say she was, an' that beard showing on her chin under her thrummed hat an' muffler, a man with score o' years to beard need not be ashamed of-this same woman comes to Goodman Gosling's, him as dwelt by the churchyard. But he, avised about her dealings, sent her speedily away, most like not choosing his words, him being of a jandered, queazy stomach, an' something given to tongue. For an hour following her going, an' you'll believe me-an' I had it from his wife's cousin a-come ten year this simple time when I visited my sister's daughter Nan at Brentford-his hogs fell sick an' died to the number o' twenty an' he helpless afore their bloating and swelling.

"Nor did it end there, for his children falling ill soon after-a pretty dears they were, I mind them, a-hanging of their heads to see a stranger, an' a finger in mouth-they falling sick, the woman of Brentford come again, an' this time all afraid to say her nay. An' layin' off her cloak, she took the youngest from the mother's breast, dandling an' chucking it like an honest woman, whereupon it fell a-sudden in a swoon.

"An' Goodwife Gosling seizing it, an' mindful of her being a witch-woman, calling on the name of God, straightway there fell out of the child's blanket a great toad which exploded in the fire like any gunpowder, an' the room that full o' smoke an' brimstone as none could-Save us! What's that!" cried Gammer.

[Illustration: "'Save us! What's that!' cried Gammer"]

What, indeed! That cry-this rush along the passageway! Will Shakespeare, with heart a-still, clutches at Gammer's gown as there follows a crash against the oaken panels.

But as the door bursts open, it is Hamnet, head-first, sprawling into the room, the pippins preceding him over the floor.

"It were ahind me, breathin' hoarse, on the cellar stairs," whimpers Hamnet, gathering himself to his knees, his fist burrowing into his eyes.

Nor does he know why at this moment the laughter rises loud. For Hamnet cannot see what the others can-the white nose of Clowder, the asthmatic old house-dog, coming inquiringly over his shoulder, her tail wagging inquiry as to the wherefore of the uproar.

But somehow, little Will Shakespeare did not laugh. Instead his cheeks and his ears burned hot for Hamnet. Judith did not laugh either. Judith was ten, and Hamnet's sister, and her black eyes flashed around on them all for laughing, and her cheeks were hot. Judith flung a look at Gammer, too, her own Gammer. And Will's heart warmed to Judith, and he went too when she sprang to help Hamnet.

Hamnet's face was scarlet yet as he fumbled around among the rushes and the greens for the pippins, and this done he retired hastily to his stool. But three-legged stools are uncertain, and he sat him heavily down on the rushes instead.

Whereupon they laughed the louder, the girls and the women too-laughed until the candle flames flickered and flared, and Gammer, choking over her bowl, for cates and cider were being handed round, spilled the drink all down her withered neck and over her gown, wheezing and gasping until her daughter snatched the bowl from her and shook the breath back into her with no gentle hand.