A Warwickshire Lad

X

So this afternoon Will tramped off to Shottery. There was a consciousness in the back of his mind of wonderful leafiness and embowering, of vines and riotous bloom about Ann's home. He opened the wicket and trudged up the path, and peered in at the open door. Ann, within the doorway, saw him. She looked him in the eye, then up at the sun yet high in the sky, and laughed. And he knew she understood it-truancy.

[Illustration: "He ... trudged up the path and peered in at the open door"]

Perhaps she understood more than the fact, perhaps she understood the feeling. She threw her work aside, needle stuck therein, and clapped a wide straw hat upon her head and taking his hand dragged him down the path and out the gate and away-along the Evesham road.

But she lectured him nevertheless, this red-cheeked boy with the full as yet undisciplined young mouth and the clear, warm hazel eyes.

"You tell me that I, too, throw my work down and run away? Ay, Will, there's that hot blood within me that sweeps me out every now and then from within tame walls and from stupid people, and makes me know it is true, the old tale of some wild, gypsy blood brought home by a soldier Hathaway for wife. But there is this difference, if you please, sir; I throw down my work because I have fought my fight and conquered it, am mistress of what I will in my household craft. Think you that I love the molding of butter and the care of poultry, or to spin, to cut, to sew, because I do them and do them well? It is not the thing I love, Will-it is in the victory I find the joy. I would conquer them to feel my power. Conquer your book, Will, stride ahead of your class, then play your fill till they arrive abreast of you again. But a laggard, a stupid, or a middling! And, in faith, the last is worst."

They walked along, boy and young woman, she musing, he looking up with young ardor into her face. "You-you are so beautiful, Ann," the boy blurted forth, "and-and-no one understands as you do."

She laid a hand on his shoulder and turned her dark eyes upon him. Teasing eyes they could be and mocking, yet sweet, too. Ah, sweet and tender through their laughter!

"Shall I tell you why I understand, Will Shakespeare, child?" Was she talking altogether to the boy, or above his head-aloud-as to herself? "I am a woman, Will, and at nineteen most such are already wife and mother, and I am still unwed. Shall I tell you why? We are but souls wandering and lonely in the dark, Will, other souls everywhere around, but scarce a groping hand that ever meets or touches our outstretched own. In all life we feel one such touch, perchance, or two. The rest we know no more than if they were not there. My father, great, simple, countryman's soul, I knew, Will, and Mary Shakespeare I know. Would she might learn she could do more with John through laughter, dear heart; but the right is ever stronger with Mary than the humor of the thing. My father and Mary I have known. And you, you I knew when in your rage you fell upon the maid, baby that you were at five, and beat her with your fists because she wantonly swept your treasures-a rose petal, a beetle wing, a pebble, a feather-into her kitchen fire. I knew you then, for so I had been beating at fate my life long. I knew you, Will, and, dear child, always since I have watched and understood. Rebel if you will; be free; but to be free, forget not, is to be conqueror over that within self first."

Will caught her hand; he whispered; his voice burned hot with a child's jealousy.

"'Tis said you are to wed Abraham Stripling, Ann, an' that the foreign doctor who wants to wed you, broke Abra'm's head with his pestle."

Ann Hathaway laughed; her eyes were mocking now; she backed against the lichened trunk of a giant elm by the roadside, a young, beauteous thing, and looked at the boy in scorn. "I to marry Abraham Stripling! Child though you are, you know me better than that. Did I not just tell you I am free now-free? That I have held fast to my duty, and so come to where I might be free? Have held them at bay-family, cousins, elders, sweethearts-until now, the rest married and gone, and the tasks as they gave them up come to be mine, my mother needs me, and my life may be my own-and free. For who has come to wed me? Did I not just say I was-I am-free? A soul groping lonely in the dark? No man's hand has reached toward mine that I, a woman and a weakling, could not shake off. When the masterful hand, groping, seizes mine, I shall know it, and I-I will kiss it with my lips-and-and follow after."

[Illustration: "'When the masterful hand, groping, seizes mine, I shall know it'"]

She came back to him as one from an ecstasy. "And now, child, go on home. It is late. And hurry or Mary will be fretting. You have had your cake and eaten it. Now go pay for it. 'Discipline must be maintained,' says your Welsh schoolmaster. And sure he will flog you."