The Project Gutenberg eBook of It Was Marlowe, by William Gleason Zeigler

Come death and with thy fingers close my eyes,
Or if I live, let me forget myself:
—Edward the Second, v, 1.

Oh God!—Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall leave behind me!
—Hamlet, v, 2.

The termination of the combat awakened feelings in the woman varied in their character and following one another with the speed of successive thoughts. She was stunned with the suddenness of the close; horror-stricken with the violence of the catastrophe; elated with the escape of Marlowe, find tremulous with sympathy for the unfortunate slain. In her silent prayer for the deliverance of Marlowe, she had only thought of it through deliberate truce, or interference from without. No idea of his escape through the death of his antagonist had occurred to her. She could not have prayed for such catastrophe, and even the wish was foreign to her mind. All the confidence that Fraser had displayed had been impressed upon her, and there had been nothing in the prolonged, though skillful, resistance of Marlowe that had raised a doubt over the dreaded outcome.

Faint with her loss of hope for mercy on the part of Frazer, she had crept to the door with the idea of throwing it open and alarming the house. With one hand on the bolt and the other on the knob she had turned her face for a last look at the combatants. It was at this moment that the coup de grace was given. She turned about and started forward with a low cry, partly of relief, partly of anguish, partly of horror.

There was something in the agonized face of the wounded man, that, while it awakened her pity, repelled her. He was still clutching his sword as though to thrust it at his unseen adversary, and the point of the trembling blade danced on the carpet. Her impulse had been to afford him succor, but the sight of his dying struggles, and the weakness of her limbs prevented. She sank on a couch before one of the walls, and, as though fascinated by the scene that had rendered her momentarily powerless, she continued to gaze upon it.

The morbid curiosity that controls an observer of the strongest agonies appears to give the lie to the belief that man is naturally humane; or why does resistance against impending death attract more than beauty or the peacefully sublime? Our resistance against observation availeth not, until the issue is no longer in doubt. Is it not because the glow and fire of intense action is communicated from the actor to the spectator? for even frailty of physical body, or purity of mind can not close the eyes at that point where in the supreme struggle neither life nor death appears to have complete mastery? But when the horror has reached its climax, interest fails with the cessation of action, and if death hath prevailed, then at length we hide our faces.

Thus it was that the woman was controlled; thus it was that, speechless and with straining vision, she caught every move of the man before her. His struggles grew less; his gaspings more prolonged and choked, until with a last effort he partly raised himself and then fell back motionless. The death-rattle escaped from his lips, and from the ensuing silence, the woman knew that the body upon the floor was lifeless; but she saw it not. She had long desired a separation from this man, but not at such sacrifice. She thought not of it then, even with the old love returned and every obstacle apparently swept aside. It was the thought of murder done that surged in and out, and in and out, of her mind.

And Marlowe, still against the wall, seemed reeling with the burden of his thoughts. He saw not the woman with terror-stricken face before him; he saw not the flaring candles, the fallen chairs, the naked swords upon the floor, the bleeding body near his feet. All these objects were before his open eyes, but the horror of the scene had bred new and shifting phantoms. The spirit which in quiet meditation had bodied forth the good and evil angels of Faustus, the harnessed emperors of Tamburlaine and the dying Edward, now saw itself in body hounded by the officers of the law; saw the impassive judge, the dull jury, and the shadow of the gallows.

He saw the honors of Cambridge blotted with stains indelible; the averted face of Walsingham, his patron; the sad countenance of Manwood, under whose flattering praise and financial aid he had pursued his studies. And, closer still, he saw the troubled and pallid face of that one woman, who, with steadfast faith in his genius and undying hope in his ultimately glorious career, prayed ever for him under the home-roof in Canterbury. Was she—his mother—to hear of his trial, and death under sentence of the law? And Marlowe, what of thyself?

In the train of these dark presentiments of what the material life promised, came now the heavy clouds wrought through consideration of the aspect of his ideal world. The treble darkness of night was about him. The dreams with which he had nursed his ambition vanished. And that ambition how deplorably annihilated. He who had written: “Virtue solely is the sum of glory,
And fashions men with true nobility,”
required no posthumous lines to point his place among the immortals. What dramas stood on the same eminence with Faustus and Edward the Second? Were not the gates of the inner temple opening wide before him? Were not his fancy’s wings gathering strength for greater flights? The flush of youth at nine-and-twenty was upon him; the fate of a murderer awaited him. Of reasoning faculty sublime, he shuddered at the thought of his name being eternally linked with crime.

In this agony, all thoughts of the original purpose of his presence in the room, all consideration of the woman, were buried as though beneath ice. It was the contrasted thoughts of the height from which he had fallen with the depth that he had reached that pervaded his mind. He blinded his eyes with his hand and staggered like a drunken man across the room toward the windows at the front, where he stood looking out through the lattice, back from which the heavy shutters had been swung. No objects met his gaze; no sounds arose. The woman heard his steps and aroused herself. It was Kit whom she saw, and the calmness resulting from her knowledge of freedom from hated ties came to her like fresh air through windows lately pent. The dead man escaped her eyes; she saw no one but the living, and raising herself from the couch she followed him across the room. Misapprehending the nature of his distress, she whispered encouragingly:

He did not answer her, and this utter disregard of her presence and of her voice provoked an involuntary tremor.

“Kit, Kit, Kit,” she said, prolonging the name with each utterance, “do you not hear me? No alarm has been given. We can escape.”

But still he gave no sign of hearing, and she shook his shoulder desperately and turned his face so that his eyes could not but dwell upon her face. Again she spoke sympathizingly:

“At worst, ’twas done in self-defense. The combat was forced upon you. And was not the fatal stroke an accident? Come, come, we can not remain here.”

“Self-defense?” he repeated, questioningly, as though the idea was a new one generated wholly through his own deliberations. “’Twas a duel, and a death in such event is murder,” he added, observing her apparently for the first time.

“True, but what of that? Did not Hopton, Renow, and Dalton seek refuge under such a plea without avail? The outcome of a tavern brawl will not be handled by a judge with gloves on. The jury, it is true, can speak but only under the direction of the court.” He seemed talking to himself, but aloud so that she heard him. “The killing of another in a duel is murder on the part of the survivor. And then the infamy of such a trial!”

“But,” she exclaimed, “you may avoid arrest. And as for infamy, the disgrace would be mine. My husband killed by thee and in my apartments.”

At these latter thoughts the look of distress deepened on her face, and the weakness exhibited was in striking contrast with the strength she had displayed in her endeavor to afford him solace. His apparent coldness had also chilled and repelled her, and not understanding the nature of a despair in which he could not give some faint expression of love for her, she sank helpless at his feet.

This movement shook him from his brooding over the far-reaching and distant effect of the fatal stroke, to a consideration of the living reality. The tide of his feelings rose in its proper channel; he bent over her compassionately and raised her from the floor.

“Anne, Anne,” he said with returning fervor, “forgive me for my selfishness. I have been so blinded by the darkness that I thought I walked alone. And what is my misery compared with thine?”

He held her closely in his arms. It was not strange that a relaxation of mind should follow with the knowledge that she was not standing wholly alone. With her realisation that his past indifference had been but a temporary condition, her emotions became too strong to control, and the flood of tears that welled from her eyes gave evidence of the recent strain to which her feelings had been subjected. He did not attempt to subdue this exhibition of sensitiveness except with words of hope and assurance of his love, while he continued to hold her to him. The emotion had at length spent its force, and a calmness that seemed unnatural in the presence of the dead pervaded her. Releasing herself from his embrace she went over and kneeled down beside the body of Frazer. She touched the face compassionately, at the same time shocked with the sense that life was wholly extinct. The face was turned back so that the wound was on the side toward the floor. Half of the horribleness of the object was thus hidden, and viewing the profile she was again struck with its likeness to Marlowe’s.

“Look,” she said to her companion, who stood near her, “how like he is to thee.”

“Yes, do you not see? Is there not a striking similarity in form? Is not the nose the same as thine? The face clean shaven; the hair of like color?”

He spoke as though to change her opinion, and then added, “Dost thou mean that there is enough resemblance for the one to be taken for the other?”

This time his anxiety for an affirmative answer could have been read by the veriest tyro.

“Like? Yes, much like, and when you met here I was startled by the resemblance,” she answered decidedly; and in a strain like that of one whose mind has dwelt long and intensely upon the subject, she continued, “I could not fail to comment on it when I met him shortly after I last saw you and when I believed we were done with each other for ever. It was this that drew my attention to him, and prevailed upon by his apparently sincere professions of love, I became his wife.”

“No,” he answered, “nor even entertained a suspicion that you had so soon forgotten me.”

“Nay, do not say that,” she remonstrated, “it was seven months since, but——”

He interrupted her. “This is no place for such confession. Later, Anne; I cannot listen now.”

She had touched the hand of the dead man, and then as she noticed the glittering and unstained brand she shuddered at the thought of how much more deplorable would have been her situation had the sword reached the mark for which she had lately seen it wielded.

While Anne was thus momentarily occupied, her companion was possessed with new and entirely different thoughts than those which had lately disturbed him. In his late reflections concerning his future the question of escape had cut no prominent figure, for even though he might forever successfully baffle the officers of the law, none the less this dark chapter of his life would sully his fame. But the woman’s words of his resemblance to the dead man had lifted the heaviest of the clouds of darkness; and in the succeeding mental illumination, he felt a transport that urged him to immediate action. His mind, fertile in plot, had developed a cover for his fame. He saw the passing away of his old life, and, in the transition, read the promise of a new one; it might be in obscurity, but without obloquy.

There was no time to be spent in aught but the furtherance of his design, but first he felt the need of his companion’s assurance of absolute secrecy concerning the tragedy. His own future might now be subjected to so many vicissitudes, that a separation between himself and Anne might be inevitable. Who could tell what influences might be brought to bear upon her years hence? The seal of secrecy must never be broken.

“Anne,” he said, abruptly, “this deed may bring trouble to both of us. Can I rely upon thee absolutely and forever, in whatever situation thou art placed, whether apart from me or with me, to let no whisper of my name come from thy lips so far as the events of this night are concerned? I know it is asking much, but I have more than my personal safety at heart. I can not explain to thee. I can only implore——”

“Stop,” she exclaimed, passionately, as though the doubt in her implied by the question had cut her to the quick. “Why should you ask?”

“But we know not,” he resumed, “to what test thy love, thy constancy may be put. I do not doubt thee nor thy strength.”

“Say no more,” she again interrupted. “No persuasion, no promises, no threats, no torture shall ever prevail upon me to lisp one syllable of thy name as connected with this death. You can trust me in that.”

Her assurance was of a character calculated to press him forward in his hastily formulated scheme of concealment.

“I trust you implicitly,” he said, “and now you must lose no time in flight.”

“I shall go, too, but it must be by a different way. You know the exits from this tavern even better than I do.”

She hurried into the alcove and returned with a cape thrown over her shoulders, in the hood of which she was hastily arranging her hair.

“See,” she said, pointing towards the arras, “the filled saddle bags are there. You must bring them with thee. And where am I to meet thee?”

“At the gnarled oak,” he answered, “a half mile from here at the point where the road turns downward to the little bridge. You will wait for me there.”

“I wish to hide the crime,” he whispered, and as she looked inquiringly at him, he added, “Nay, do not ask how.”

And with these words he cautiously unbolted and opened the door wide enough to admit of her exit. The hall lamps had been extinguished.

“It is very dark,” he whispered as though hesitating at the thought of her departure alone.

“Have no fears of that,” he returned, “hasten, we have no time to spare.”

No further words were spoken, but hurriedly embracing each other as though years instead of minutes was to be their term of separation, she disappeared into the darkness.

He closed the door and bolted it again. Then he knelt beside the dead. His hands trembled in spite of the determination with which he set himself to accomplish his project. The excitement, apprehension of discovery, and the horror of the scene, almost unnerved him; but he covered his eyes with one of his hands for a moment, shook off the feeling of weakness, and then moved the body to one side, to clear it of the pool of blood. He unbuttoned the buff doublet of the corpse, and drew it off. Next he stripped it of the jerkin, belt and scabbard, then the shoes, hose and trunks and shirt. A naked body lay before him under the flickering light of the candles. Heavy footsteps in an adjoining room startled him, and he glanced at one of the corners beside the great chimney as though expecting a form to come forth. But immediately the source of the noise became apparent, and the chorus of a bacchanal song jarred him with its unfitness:

“O for a bowl of fat Canary,
Rich Palermo, sparkling sherry,
Some nectars else from Juno’s dairy,
O these draughts would make us merry.”

This song of John Lilly, one which he had sung many times with riotous companions, could not but cause him to add, in the momentary relaxation afforded:

And if the tapster does not bring
The draughts for which you’re clamoring,
Come drain with me the bitter bowl
I drink at passing of a soul.

They were lines provoked half in jest half in earnest; and again as quietness prevailed, he relapsed into his previous condition of profound melancholy. His task was but half completed; he unbuckled his own sword belt, and his fingers, which had again begun to tremble, let the scabbard fall clattering at his feet. He shook himself as though his body were the unruly instrument of a prompting and immovable mind. If this action had any result whatever it did not prevent his hands from wrenching several buttons from the front of his scarlet doublet, as he stripped it off. Still he proceeded in his task.

One by one his rich but rough-used vestments were thrown off, until the living was as the dead. The work was now bringing the calm which afforded speed to his movements, so that in an interval he had dressed the corpse in his garments, leaving it just as it had fallen on the floor. He next retreated to the alcove and washed himself clear of blood.

The buff coat was stained and spotted by the life-current of the dead man. He cast it to one side. The rest of the garments were free of any traces of the catastrophe. In these he dressed himself; buckled the belt around his waist; picked up the long murderous-looking blade of Ferrera and sheathed the same in its scabbard against his puffed upper hose. From a hook upon the wall, in the alcove, he took a long dark cloak with white silk lining and silver buckle at the collar. This he threw over his shoulders so that the absence of a coat or doublet was not perceptible.

The papers from his own pockets, with his name written upon several of them, he had dropped near one of the out-stretched hands upon the carpet. There seemed no possibility for the body to be buried under any name but that of Christopher Marlowe. He readjusted the misfitting hat, extinguished the candles, opened the door, and closing it after him, stepped into the hall.

The old life had closed. So far as the world should know the first adventurous pilot upon the ocean of English blank verse [note 17], the mighty Marlowe, was among the immortal dead.

THE APPREHENSION OF ANNE.

Was that the face that launched a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
—Faustus, by Marlowe, Scene xiv.

Why she is a pearl
Whose price hath launched above a thousand ships
And turned crowned kings to merchants.
—Troilus and Cressida, ii, 2.

Eighteen years before the date fixed for the beginning of this narrative, a daughter of Manuel Crossford, alderman and mercer, was born in the town of Canterbury. This child was christened Anne, and, as the sole offspring of the house and only companion of the father, whose wife had soon after joined the silent majority, her welfare became his chief concern. At sixteen years of age she had developed into a girl of such beauty that Christopher Marlowe, son of the clerk of “St. Maries” of Canterbury, a graduate of Cambridge, and resident of London, had fallen desperately in love with her. It was during a temporary visit to his native town that this occurred.

Well authenticated stories of Marlowe’s five years of dissipation in London, after the termination of his scholarship at Cambridge, caused Manuel Crossford to look with disfavor upon his attentions. There was the chapter in which he figured as a common player of interludes, or, in other words, as a vagrant actor, forming part of the unwritten biography of the suitor; and the father of the maiden could not forget the account of Marlowe’s having broken “his leg in one lewd scene, when in his early age,” as was expressed some time later by a malignant rhymster.19

This latter report had been clearly disproved, but it had raised a prejudice which could not be overturned. Then again, Crossford was a devout Brownist, and it was too well known to admit of doubt that Marlowe was an avowed freethinker. Had he not written in one of his plays:

“I count religion but a childish toy,
And hold there is no crime but ignorance”?20

If a man did not entertain such opinions himself he would not allow them to be mouthed by any speaker before an assemblage, thought Crossford. It was true that he had written passages that glowed with the fervor of his worship of the All-creating Soul of the Universe, but this did not prevent him from abjuring the Trinity. There were suspicions that he had committed this ecclesiastical crime.

Crossford was not familiar with Marlowe’s works, but he had heard the clerk of “St. Maries” enthusiastically repeat the lines written by his distinguished son:

“Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend
The wonderous architecture of the world,
And measure every wandering planet’s course,
Still climbing after knowledge infinite,
And always moving as the restless spheres,
Will us to wear ourselves, and never rest,
Until we reach the ripest fruit of all.”

And at their recital he, Crossford, had nodded approval, and then shook his head as he thought of the eternal fires already prepared for the irreverent young man. The predicted fame of the latter had no weight in the other side of the scales held by the non-compromising Brownist [note 30].

At length matters reached such a crisis that in 1592, the alderman determined that his daughter should be placed under more strict surveillance than he was capable of maintaining. In considering the matter his thoughts had turned in the direction of his sister’s house in London. The chances were fair for the close confinement there of the maiden until time should have worn away the image of her lover. For the moment, the Protestant actually wished for the restoration of the dissolved nunneries. Like the Jew of Malta, who had placed his daughter within the walls of a priory, the stiff-necked Brownist could have smothered his religious prejudices when the interests lying next to his heart were at stake. But half a century had elapsed since the sisters of the convents, with only their clothes upon their backs, had been rudely forced into secular life, and their abodes confiscated by the crown.

The sister of Crossford was the wife of Richard Bame. Living childless, she had long since pleaded for the adoption of her niece, but Crossford had turned a deaf ear toward all such entreaties. Her home was a “faire dwelling” amid spacious and walled grounds, the bequest of her father. As she was a woman of advanced education for the times, and a strict disciplinarian, it was no wonder that Manuel Crossford turned toward her in what he deemed was his extremity. Without notice given his daughter of their destination or his intentions, the alderman started with her on the journey toward the great metropolis.

They traveled by the way of Deptford, and knowing Dodsman intimately from an early day, they stayed for several days at the Golden Hind. Before their sojourn at the latter place had ended, Marlowe had heard of their presence there and forthwith appeared at the tavern. A stormy interview took place between the father and the suitor; a misunderstanding arose, and a bitter quarrel followed between the lovers, and apparently the meeting was but an episode in the journey.

Anne was soon afterward received into the house of Mistress Bame, where studies were begun and assiduously maintained. Any tears which she might have shed over what she supposed was the termination of the affair with Marlowe, were soon followed by a condition of mind giving evidence of its freedom from regret and melancholy, by clarity of countenance. But this peaceful condition of mind was more in the nature of a reflection of the new, and, at first, pleasant surroundings. The extent to which her affection had become involved was not at that time known to herself. It required another revolution of the kaleidoscope of her life to show the contrasting pictures of light and gloom, traced by her first love in ineffaceable colors. This revolution was not to be long delayed. It required another’s devotion; the paling of the fire of attraction and the second advent of Marlowe.

Anne had not been wholly restricted to the grounds within the walls of the residence of Bame; but upon all her departures therefrom she was accompanied by the watchful mistress. Upon one of these occasions they became separated from each other by the waves of a great crowd rushing through Fenchurch Street. It was an insurrection raised by the apprentices of the city against the alien workingmen; and although neither riotous nor destructive at the point where the younger woman became lost from the older, it was sufficiently threatening to cause the closing and barricading of all shops and houses along that ancient thoroughfare. Anne became extricated from the mob through the efforts of a young man, who proved to be Francis Frazer. He had noticed her upon a previous occasion. He had the grace of a courtier and his apparel was in keeping with his apparent rank.

Her beauty had flashed upon him and fixed his attention. On his part, it was love at first sight. Upon her part, she was attracted by his distinguished appearance, and visibly affected by his immediate protestations of affection. Unfortunately for both, as the sequel proved, he escorted her to her home.

Frequent occasions for meetings between the two followed, despite the vigilance of the aunt, and gradually the restraints of home life became irksome beyond the limit of endurance. The interest of the girl in her admirer increased in like proportion, and he, at an early period of their acquaintance, discovered that his feelings toward her were founded upon something more than temporary passion. With all the ardor of his impetuous nature he prevailed upon her to accept his hand in marriage; and the safeguards which Manuel Crossford had erected to keep his daughter fancy free, until he might arrange a suitable marriage, trembled at the assault and then fell to pieces. In confidence that the Count would fulfill his promise of marriage, the girl fled from the home of Bame leaving no clue from which to ascertain the cause of her flight or the place of her concealment. She was married to Francis Frazer at St. Peter’s Church on Cornhill.

Suspicions were by Crossford directed against Marlowe, for he knew nothing of the new suitor, and although he was quietly shadowed on several occasions, the fruitless result had not yet been sufficient to satisfy the father that Marlowe was not holding the girl in some secure hiding-place. At Canterbury and elsewhere Marlowe had been unable to learn anything concerning the girl since her departure from her father’s house. Not even a rumor of her marriage had reached his ears, and more than a year had passed since their last meeting when, beside the dead body of the Count, she told him of it.

This marriage had proved to be an unhappy one, partially due to the excessive and unwarranted jealousy of her husband. During the few months of their married life, they had wandered through various quarters of London and its vicinity, and at length had reached the Golden Hind a few days prior to the eventful night of June the first, 1593.

Here Frazer sojourned while making arrangements for leaving with his wife for the continent. A vessel then lay at the wharf of Deptford upon which he designed to make the voyage. Against this contemplated move the wife had remonstrated with such vigor and persistency that despite her protestations to the effect that her objections arose from a dread of entering an unknown world, and a desire to become reconciled with her father, the Count became suspicious that she had plotted to desert him or at least to thwart his plans.

It was shortly after one of the most violent scenes between them that Anne saw Tabbard in the hall, as related, and heard his welcome announcement that the one whom she believed had passed forever out of her life was not only anxious to see her, but was within call. Upon that sudden and unexpected communication, if she had had time to consider she might have formulated a different answer, but with the remembrances which the mention of Marlowe’s name awakened, her heart rushed to her lips, and at the instant she caught a glimpse of Frazer, she gave expression to her longing. It was like an outcry of one in distress, but founded upon no idea that through her old lover lay deliverance.

As already stated Frazer had accidentally heard the few words she had uttered, and it was his actions resulting from his suspicions of a contemplated elopement that brought about the tragedy at the tavern. With this digression, explanatory of the events leading up to the tragedy of that night, we will now return to the point where the door was closed upon the retreat of Anne.

The hall into which the woman entered, lighted, as it was momentarily, by the rays from the room faced by the carved panels, became black as night as she heard the door shut behind her. She found the balustrade, pushed her hand along its smooth top and at length reached the head of the stairs. Even then, as her eyes stared into the lower depths, no amelioration of the darkness appeared. Step by step she descended, crossing the middle landing, still holding to the balustrade. She had reached the foot and stood there for the moment trembling over thoughts of the scene from which she had just fled and apprehensive of present evil. The way was known to her as clearly as a father’s house to children. Straight ahead led the hall without a turn to the narrow door into the inn-yard. Her hand fell from the balustrade, but as it did so it was caught by another hand, and she felt bungling fingers run across her face. In vain she attempted to control her terror, but the brain, already overtaxed, went to pieces like a glass let fall on marble pavements. She uttered one scream and fainted.

A quiet, like that of a country church at high noon on week days had been for some time pervading the tap-room of the Golden Hind. The party at the center table had scattered; the landlord rubbing his eyes, had disappeared through the door above which hung the cracked painting of the host in red coat and face betokening welcome; the line of decanters and bezzling glasses on the shelf, under the long mirror behind the bar, appeared ready for the dust of at least one quiet half-night to settle upon it; while outstretched on two chairs, with his drowsy head leaning on the arm of one of them, lay the tapster, the only human occupant of the room. The cat had crawled under his arm, and, in his half sleep, he was mechanically stroking her. Out of this condition he was aroused by startling sounds in the hall.

He quickly rose to his feet and rushed to the door. The light fell full upon two persons, a woman lying unconscious at the base of the stairs, and a drunken actor leaning over her. The latter exhibited a stupefied countenance, either as the result of a light being flashed so suddenly upon him, or from the discovery of what lay at his feet. He had hardly realized that he had clasped a hand or fumbled a face, or at least nothing more than that of some serving woman of the place, and when he saw a woman with features of almost transcendent beauty, and of attire fit for a lady of rank, lying at his feet, he cowered in the light as one might when apprehended in the commission of a heinous crime.

“Good God, man, is she killed?” exclaimed the other leaning over and attempting to raise the recumbent body at his feet.

Blood was flowing from a gash cut in the woman’s head by the sharp edge of the stair. The two men picked her up and carried her into the tap-room, where they placed her in one of the widest chairs. The tapster recognized her as the lady who had arrived there a few days previously with the Count, and looked suspiciously at the actor; but, without asking any questions of the latter, he began bathing her face in cold water and binding a cloth around her head to stop the flow of blood. Its current darkly streaked the mass of golden hair which, having been liberated from the confinement of the hood, fell disheveled around the high white ruff, in which the lower part of her face was concealed, and upon the puffed shoulders terminating the tight, slashed sleeves of vari-colored silk. Her hooded cape of showy fabric lay upon the floor. Her full gown of blue silk with front embroidered from the collar down the long pointed doublet and dress front, comfortably filled the chair. The lamps directly overhead had been extinguished, and it was the light from the still blazing candles at the angle of the chimney that flared upon her pallid face.

Several minutes had passed and all attempts at her restoration had been unavailing. A serious expression had gathered on the face of the tapster, and the actor looked to have been shaken into sobriety. Suddenly the two men heard light footsteps in the hallway. The door had been left open. They looked toward it, and at that moment the figure of a man passed across the seam of light and was immediately swallowed by the darkness that lay on the further edge. As the light struck him he had looked towards its source, but if he recognized any member of the group or realized the character of the scene which he had momentarily disturbed, it did not cause him to pause. The sound of the closing of the door into the inn-yard immediately afterwards echoed through the hall.

“That was her husband, the Count,” whispered the actor, looking with amazement at his companion.

“Nay,” said the actor, “Marlowe was not so attired. It is her husband. You had better follow him with word of her condition.”

“If I thought you were right,” returned the tapster with considerable feeling, “I would not stir a step, for I am not anxious to serve the ruffian. The blow he felled me with was none to my liking. I would do anything for the lady, but what she needs is what he is now doing. We will stop him, whoever he is, as he returns.”

A PRECARIOUS EXISTENCE.

Might first made kings, and laws were then most sure
When like the Draco’s they were writ in blood.
—Jew of Malta, i, 1.

The bloody book of law,
You shall yourself read, in the bitter letter,
After your own sense.
—Othello, i, 3.

On the night of the murder in the old Deptford tavern the man who was to profit most from the false shadows thrown by the crime and its concealment was at the Boar’s Head in London. This man was William Shakespere. Without his volition and unknown to himself the crown of immortality was being set upon his brows. Just as unconsciously moved the hands that placed it there. Had the placing of it been designed; had the person who has worn it all these centuries felt its presence and coveted it, possibly all cloud that has since obscured his title might have been removed; but the actors were only puppets in the hands of the blind goddess of Mischance. The vital flaws remain, and have been pointed out by the searchers. Their genuineness has been demonstrated, but the source of title has been misapprehended. The falsifying of the record of the crime at Deptford being discovered, the tracing of the title through a deep channel to its true fountain head is a task easy of accomplishment. It leads to Christopher Marlowe.

With Shakespere were two others, whose lives were inseparably interwoven with that of his own and with Marlowe’s. One was George Peele, the dramatist, the other was Christopher Tamworth, the lawyer of Gray’s Inn.

The Eastcheap tavern, while frequently the gathering place for roysterers, was also a known resort for strolling players, pamphleteers, dramatists and other men of genius and ambition, who were looked upon with suspicion by a government that imagined greater danger from a middle class with intellect and ability of expression than from a powerful nobility, or an ignorant multitude of serfs.

At times, crowds in bacchanalian riot burnt out the hours of the night; again the peace of a cloister pervaded there, and from the lower bay, and higher dormer windows the lights of workers’ candles gleamed. Eastcheap Street might rattle with tumbrils, carts and horses’ hoofs, and the air be shattered by the cries of costard mongers, tooting of hautboys, or the ringing of bellmen, still the thick walls of the Boar’s Head enticed within them those who worked out their deliverance in solitary effort and meditation.

The three men were in a spacious room at the rear corner of one of the upper stories of the famous tavern. One window opening through the thick stone wall, faced the church-yard of St. Michaels with its drooping trees, its tenants of near three hundred years of burial, and its stately edifice wherein the fishmongers and butchers from near shops and stalls congregated. Clambering vines rooted in rich soil, framed this deep and narrow window in green; and in breezy hours sent to the ears of indwellers a rustle sweetly suggestive of the far distant woods of Kent or Surrey. In the wall facing Crooked Lane another window overlooked a traveled way so narrow that hands outstretched from facing windows on either side could clasp each other. On the pavement below, a foot passer might squeeze by a costard monger’s cart, but two carts abreast could not pass. Projecting platforms, under fronting doors with narrow stairs descending to the street, and boards thrust out from windows whereon hung linen drying, or boxed plants, assisted in obscuring the light.

The room was the living apartment of George Peele, and for several years during his separation from his wife, had been the retreat of that genius, where in intervals between mad dissipations he had written “The Famous Chronicle History of King Edward the First.” The innate taste of this individual, as displayed in the richness of the imagery that characterized his plays, could not but reveal itself in the external surroundings over which he had control. His purse had never been sufficiently distended for him to contract for luxurious apartments, or at least distended long enough for him to pause in the wild revel which always followed close on the heels of the receipt of money for a play, to consider any question of comfort in the near future, consequently both in seasons of poverty and moments of affluence this one room at the Boar’s Head was his permanent headquarters.

The blackened ceiling remained as he had found it; the ground work of dingy wall on all sides had not been changed except by the articles hung against it, and these were as varied as a prodigal hand could gather. A magnificent piece of tapestry from the looms of Flanders, bearing upon its blue groundwork the red figure of a horse and crowned rider, covered one entire side of the room. It was said to have been the gift of Queen Elizabeth, for whom, in 1584, Peele had written the comedy of “The Arraignment of Paris,” and had been bestowed after her hearing of the poet’s fancy for the hanging as he had first seen it in the banqueting house of the royal palace at Whitehall. On low stands before it were two black Greek vases of great value.

Against another wall were two long halbards, crossed just below their heads, whose bright steel flashed back the light of the lamp. The ends of their poles touched the floor, and between them was a long Norman hauberk of trellised plate and a kite-shaped shield as rusty as six centuries could make them. The chimney place was narrow, deep and black. Great brass firedogs was all that it contained at that season. Above it the shelf, formed by the receding of the chimney, was crowded with bronze and white marble statuettes, among which, one of the queen overtopped the others of more ancient sculpture.

The low iron bedstead of rude manufacture, almost concealed in the recess formed by the projecting chimney, was evidently a fixture. Of the same category were the chairs and the table. Over the latter a lamp designed to aid a scholar in his lucubrations, burned steadily from a bracket in the wall.

Books and papers were scattered on this table with inkhorn and quills, and a score of volumes on the uncarpeted floor. A copy of Homer’s Iliad lay open, with printed pages touching the wooden surface of the table, and its embossed cover displayed. Besides this were two volumes of Cicero, an English translation of the tragedies of Seneca, and of Jocaste of Euripides, of the edition of 1577. Half a dozen other Greek and Latin classics, in the costly bindings of John Reynes, were heaped so that the light of the lamp displayed them to advantage. In meaner bindings, Holinshed’s Chronicles lay open on the floor with the Mirror of Magistrates piled upon it, and in the same heap were several other volumes of cotemporary dramatists. Bundles of manuscript dramas were on one end of the table, and scattered papers bore on their faces the work of the master of the den.

It was late at night, and the three friends, for such they were, had been together in the room for several hours. The play upon which Peele was then engaged, was designed by the writer for performance by Lord Pembroke’s actors of which Shakespere was then a member.21 He had been reading it for their appreciation and suggestion, and now, having finished, they were conversing upon other topics. Tobacco smoke from the pipe of Tamworth rose in clouds, and in a wide arm-chair against the tapestry, Shakespere, also smoking, was listening to the lawyer’s remarks.

“The last is renouncing one’s religion after having professed it; the other is reviling the Father, Son, or Holy Ghost.”

He drew from his inner pocket a folded paper, and holding it so that the light struck full upon it he read: “The first beginnynge of religion was only to keep men in awe.”

“But wait,” continued Peele, “here is the sentence that sticks and perhaps gives ground for the charge, ‘if the Jews among whom he was born did crucify him they best knew him and whence he came.’”

“Truly that is blasphemous,” remarked Tamworth, “but I do not believe that he wrote it. Doth it profess on its face to be his?”

“No, they are simply charges made against him by Richard Bame, and he is an obscure person; but the Queen hath considered it seriously and a warrant hath been issued by one of the justices for his arrest.”

“You need not add the words ‘upon conviction,’ for that followeth an arrest as surely as night followeth day. It is declared by law to be fine and imprisonment, and other infamous corporal punishment,” answered Tamworth.

“Slitting the nose; cutting off an ear; a seat in the pillory, and the like,” answered Peele before the lawyer could speak.

“Thou knoweth the law, too, Peele, like a solicitor. Hast thou ever been a student and lodged at Clement’s Inn?” asked Tamworth with a smile.

“Nay, but in one play I had put blasphemous words in the mouth of a dissolute character, and, before its presentation, the same was pointed out to me by the actor whose part it was to read it, and forthwith we went to the Temple and there learned the definition of the offense and the penalty.”

“And on this opinion of one who has read no better lines than those to be found in Justinian or Littleton, and made no professions of ability to criticise, thou expurgated what to me seemed the most stirring passages of the play. Wilt thou let the light of thy torch be blanketed so that only black smoke can roll forth? Fie upon thee, man!” said Shakespere with animation.

“You know not of what you speak,” exclaimed Tamworth. “The corporal punishment may be more severe than as defined by Peele. His definition is correct, but the judges have often stretched the words to a greater extent. What if they saw fit to apply such infamous punishment that death would necessarily result?”

“Aye, and they have. Death for blasphemy maketh one smile at the laws of Draco, but such hath been and only four years since.”

“True, at Norwich in February, 1589, for questioning the Divinity of Christ, and giving utterance to other unorthodox views.”22

“Well, there is certainly little in your profession, my good fellow, unless you are licensed, or enrolled.23 The penalty of being apprehended as a strolling player, or as a common actor of interludes, is probably known to thee, and to thee, too, Peele.”

“Yes; whipping, and burning with a hot iron through the gristle of the right ear,”24 interrupted Peele, “for I saw the like punishment administered to Endermon, who is now with Henslowe at the Rose.”25

“And,” continued Tamworth, “it is because of this act of Elizabeth that you, Shakespere, are enrolled as a servant of Lord Pembroke.”

“A sorry wretch you are,” laughed Peele, looking at Shakespere, “so miserably considered that in order to gain the plaudits of the pit you must attach yourself to a licensed company.”

“And in what better condition are you?” asked Tamworth, with a smile. ou not know that in the law a dramatist is classed with vagrants? That any line of what you, Peele, write, may be interpreted as blasphemy or treason; and that as the judge before whom you may be dragged passes upon the meaning, force or effect of the questionable writing,26 you are virtually deprived of a trial by jury? And upon what slender thread your liberty would hang! Aye, e’en your life. Moreover, the judge pompously declares that he looks into the spirit instead of the letter, and thus between the lines he reads an avowal of popery and pronounces you a Papist.”

“And is not the pious poet, Robert Southwell, there now on the same charge, popery?”27 asked Peele.

THE COVER OF HIS FAME.

THE APPREHENSION OF ANNE.

A PRECARIOUS EXISTENCE.