Part 2 (2/2)
Thornbury poured the hot spiced wine into an ancient punch-bowl, and set it in the centre of the simple feast, and they all drew their chairs up to the table as the bells in Stratford rang Christmas in.
Never had the inn echoed to more joyous laughing and talking, for Thornbury and his two old friends mellowed in temper as they refilled their flagons, and they even added to the occasion by each rendering a song. Saddler bringing one forth from the dim recesses of his memory that related, in seventeen verses and much monotonous chorus, the love affairs of a certain Dinah Linn.
The child slumbered again on the oak settle in the inglenook. The firelight danced over his yellow hair and pretty dimpled hands. The candles burned low. Then Darby sang in flute-like voice a carol, that was, as he told them, ”the rage in London,” and, afterwards, just to please Deb, the old song that will never wear out its welcome at Christmas-tide, ”When shepherds watched their flocks.”
The girl would have joined him, but there came a tightness in her throat, and the hot stinging of tears to her eyes, and when the last note of it went into silence she said good night, lifted the sleeping child and carried him away.
”Deb grows more beautiful, Dad,” said the young fellow, looking after her. ”Egad! what a carriage she hath! She steps like a very princess of the blood. Hark! then,” going to the latticed window and throwing it open. ”Here come the waits, Dad, as motley a crowd as ever.”
The innkeeper was tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the lantern and seeing his neighbours to the door.
”Keep well hold of each other,” called Darby after them. ”I trow 'tis a timely proverb--'United we stand, divided we fall.'”
Saddler turned with a chuckle and shook his fist at the lad, but lurched dangerously in the operation.
”The apples were too highly spiced for such as thee,” said Thornbury, laughing. ”Thou had'st best stick to caudles an' small beer.”
”Nay, then, neighbour,” called back Sevenoakes, with much solemnity, ”Christmas comes but once a year, when it comes it brings good cheer--'tis no time for caudles, or small beer!”
At this Darby went into such a peal of laughter--in which the waits who were discordantly tuning up joined him--that the sound of it must have awakened the very echoes in Stratford town.
CHAPTER II
II
During the days following Christmas, One Tree Inn was given over to festivity. It had always been a favoured spot with the young people from Stratford and Shottery. In spring they came trooping to Master Thornbury's meadow, bringing their flower-crowned queen and ribbon-decked May-pole. It was there they had their games of barley-break, blindman's buff and the merry cus.h.i.+on dance during the long summer evenings; and when dusk fell they would stroll homeward through the lanes sweet with flowering hedges, each one of them all carrying a posy from Deb Thornbury's garden--for where else grew such wondrous clove-pinks, ragged lady, lad's love, sweet-william and Queen Anne's lace, as there? So now these old playmates of Darby's came one by one to welcome him home and gaze at him in unembarra.s.sed admiration.
Judith Shakespeare, who was a friend and gossip of Debora's, spent many evenings with them, and those who knew the little maid best alone could say what that meant, for never was there a gayer la.s.s, or one who had a prettier wit. To hear Judith enlarging upon her daily experiences with people and things, was to listen to thrilling tales, garnished and gilded in fanciful manner, till the commonplace became delightful, and life in Stratford town a thing to be desired above the simple pa.s.sing of days in other places.
No trivial occurrence went by this little daughter of the great poet without making some vivid impression upon her mind, for she viewed the every-day world lying beside the peaceful Avon through the wonderful rose-coloured gla.s.ses of youth, and an imagination bequeathed to her direct from her father.
It was on an evening when Judith Shakespeare was with them and Deb was roasting chestnuts by the hearth, that they fell to talking of London, and the marvellous way people had of living there.
A sudden storm had blown up, flakes of frozen snow came whirling against the windows, beating a fairy rataplan on the frosted gla.s.s, while the heavy boughs of the old oak creaked and groaned in the wind.
Darby and the two girls listened to the sounds without and drew their chairs nearer the fire with a sense of the warm comfort of the long cheery room. They chatted about the city and the pleasures and pastimes that held sway there, doings that seemed so extravagant to country-bred folk, and that often turned night into day--a day moreover not akin to any spent elsewhere on top of the earth.
”Dost sometimes act in the same play with my father, Darby, at the Globe Theatre?” asked Judith, after a pause in the conversation, and at a moment when the innkeeper had just left the room.
The girl was sitting in a chair whose oaken frame was black with age.
Now she grasped the arms of it tightly, and Darby noted the beautiful form of her hands and the tapering delicate fingers; he saw also a nervous tremor go through them as she spoke.
”Oh! I would know somewhat of my father's life in London,” continued Judith, ”and of the people he meets there. He hath acquaintance with many gentlemen of the Queen's Court and Parliament, for he hath twice been bidden to play in Her Majesty's theatre in the palace at Greenwich. Yet of all those doings of his and of the n.o.bles who make much of him he doth say so little, Darby.”
Debora, who was standing by the high mantel, turned towards her brother expectantly. She said nothing, but her eyes--shadowy eyes of a blue that was not all blue, but had a glint of green about it--her eyes burned as though they held imprisoned a bit of living light, like the fire in an opal.
The young player smiled; he was looking intently into the glowing coals and for the instant his thoughts seemed far away from the tranquil home scene.
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