Our Swords Will Play Orator for Us

It would be difficult adequately to describe the expressions of amazement, in face and gesture, of those who had had this christmas songs lyrics fearless effrontery thrown at them. Its effect on Marlowe and Rouse was instantaneous. Both went back immediately to the table they had quitted, refraining from any further show of fight. The youth called Frazer was the first to speak.

“Who’s the insolent fellow?”

“If I should fetch him,” observed St. Magil, as no answer was forthcoming, “you would see a most extraordinary man.” He went to the window. “Nay, he’s gone. ’Tis always thus—up and down from hell’s mouth like the devil in the play. But I can describe that face as though even now it was here before me, and, mark you, I saw it not when its mouth defied us at the window. He is well called the Wolf.”

“Nay,” interposed the poet, “save because many fear him. I drink to the man!” and Marlowe turned to Rouse.

“To the man I follow!” said the good Hugh, simply; and they drank. But the cups of Frazer and St. Magil for once stood untouched upon the table.

Before the first book of Adam and eve conversation had gone further the tap-room door opened the first book of Adam and eve , admitting a short, stout woman of[21] middle age and rubicund visage. Glancing quickly about from one to another, her eyes at length rested on Thomas Watkins, who, having had his usually prominent place in the tavern gossip usurped by those of higher degree, and holding no small measure of ale within him, sat fast asleep and snoring. The sight of the breeches-maker in this position so enraged the new-comer that she awoke him by the startling method of boxing his ears soundly, and commanding him to follow her without delay. With a pained air, yet much alacrity, the poor leather-seller obeyed his orders. It was, indeed, his life-long obedience to his wife’s decrees that won him the pity of his fellow-men.

“There’s a customer at the shop, Tom Sot,” declared the shrew, leading her husband to the bridge, “who wants you. And lucky we are if he be honest, for I must needs leave him there to guard it while I come here and get you. But Sloth’s your name, and always will be. Had ever woman such a lazy clod to depend on?”

Thus she railed at the now miserable Watkins until they came to their shop at the sign of “The Roebuck,” on London Bridge. Finding it empty, the breeches-maker, with much alarm, looked up and down the street through the gathering darkness. The narrow way on the bridge was almost deserted save for a watchman slowly approaching from the London end with horn-sided lanthorn, and halberd in hand, who cried out monotonously his song of the familiar burden:
“Lanthorn and a whole candle-light!
Hang out your lights! Hear!”

And just across the bridge stood another man near the parapet, his tall frame sharply defined against[22] the sky. It was to him that Watkins went in the hope of obtaining information concerning his departed customer.

“Can you tell me, sir, did any man just leave my shop at the sign of ‘The Roebuck’ there?”

“A man did,” replied the stranger. “I am he.”

“And you were left to guard it, sir, in Gammer Watkins’s absence,” complained the breeches-maker.

“I have guarded it. ’Twas but five minutes ago that I came out, and I’ve kept a close eye upon your doorway through every one of those five minutes. I tell you, Thomas, the time that has passed since I went out of your shop with a new pair of breeches is much longer.”

The leather-seller looked up keenly into the speaker’s face. “Salt and bread!” he exclaimed; “’tis Master Vytal!”

“Yes, Tom, or Captain Vytal, as you will, being now a fighting man from the Low Countries.”

“Oh, sir, your presence brings me pleasure and consolation, I may say. How the times have changed in these few years—within, sir, and without! Have you heard about Queen Mary, how we have been delivered from her plots these two months past in a very, I may say, forcible way? Have you heard—?”

“Ay, Tom, all that, and more, too, on the road from the coast. But one thing I have not heard—how long will it take you to make me a pair of breeches?”

“But a short time, Captain Vytal. I was ever handy and quick with work for you.”

“And so, Tom, I have come back to you.”

“Ay, sir, but, alack!—the old days cannot come back. There are many, many changes since the good old times. The world, it seems to me, grows petty.”

[23]

“What! call you it petty when a queen comes to the block?”

“Nay, but look you, Captain Vytal.” He pointed to the top of the Southwark Gate. “See those heads spiked above us. They be thirty in number, yet all are but the pates of seminary priests who have entered England against the statute. Now this old bridge has had much nobler heads upon it, crowning the traitor’s gate. The head of Sir William Wallace looked down on the river long ago, and later the Earl of Northumberland’s. Some I have seen—Sir Thomas More’s, the Bishop of Rochester’s—”

“By Heaven!” broke in Vytal, “you are in no pleasant mood, Tom, on seeing me.”

“’Tis not you, captain. ’Tis”—his voice sank lower—“she,” and he pointed toward his shop. “Have you a wife yourself?”

“Nay, Tom, nor never shall have.”

“’Tis well. The thousand new statutes that are imposed upon us by her Majesty, the queen—God preserve her!—since you left, are not one whit so hard to bear as them her majesty—God preserve me!—Gammer Watkins, imposes.”

“There are two sides to every difference, Tom. Now, a little less at the ‘Tabard’—but tell me, do the citizens grow uneasy beneath these numerous decrees?”

“Nay; many are but slight annoyances seldom put in force. The wearing of a rapier longer than three feet is forbidden by law; the wearing of a woman’s ruff too large is prohibited by law. And our caps should be of cheaper stuff than velvet by law, and we must not blow upon horns or whistles in the streets by law—’uds precious, there is no end to it. But there is no statute against the flogging of blinded bears, captain—I had almost forgot this afternoon’s[24] exploit of thine. I saw it not, for when they had brought King Lud to such a pass I could not sit there, but went to the bear-house in the garden to show a country lad Old Sarcason at closer quarters. Yet I might have known it was you when Peter Sharp described the adventure.”

Vytal laughed. “I’m sorry you so soon forgot. I meant the thing to be a lasting lesson. But come, I want a pair of breeches. I go again abroad, but westward now, to the new country.”

They walked across to the shop. “I fear,” said Watkins, his voice sinking to a whisper, “you should not tarry long. Those bear-wards will not readily forgive you.”

“Now, Thomas, what has that to do with breeches?”

“Nothing, indeed,” returned the leather-seller, with a dry, crisp laugh. “Oh, but you never change, Master Vytal.”

They were but just within the shop when the needle-maker came hurrying to the bridge excitedly, with young Frazer, Marlowe, Alleyn the actor, Gorm, and a dozen others at his heels, St. Magil slowly following in the rear.

“They seek the jackanapes who dared to curse them from the window,” said Peter Sharp. “’Tis he, they say, that spoiled the bear-fight. His man, Rouse, hath started out in search, and they, being no more threatened by the giant, are bent on scouring the town. Oh, ’twill be brave sport to see the Wolf well harried.” The needle-maker looked keenly at Watkins, behind whom Vytal, unknowingly, stood concealed by the shadows of the shop.

Carl Linnaeus Love Man in his social character Elements of character Roman Patriotism Domestic Altar Loadstar of My Life You Know the Saying Our Swords Will Play the Orator The Day Before Yesterday The Cause of Troubles Precautions from the beginning Desire to Exceed One's Program The Daily Miracle Some Wonderful Efforts The Dawn of Freedom Of Our Striving The beginning of slavery Second Residence in England Return to Basle First Visit to England Life of Hans Holbein Watkins forced a laugh. “Ay, brave sport,” said he; “but ’tis not to the town he’s gone; he hath started out toward Lambeth.”

“Toward Lambeth!” cried young Frazer, who by[25] now stood face to face with Watkins. “Ho, for Lambeth, then; but first let us stop and invite the bear-wards thither. ’Tis in part their right to end the quarrel.”

Here, perhaps, the danger would have been averted had not a new quarrel arisen of far more serious consequence, and, indeed, so fraught with import that, although but incidental, we recognize it as one of those contentions in which the very Fates themselves, seeming to join, brawl like shrews until their thread is snarled and the whole fabric of a human life becomes a hopeless tangle.

As Watkins closed the door of his shop, Sir Walter St. Magil turned back toward the ‘Tabard’ in ugly mood. The wine, which at first had exhilarated him, being now soured by his disapproval of Frazer’s rashness, only added to his ill-humor. Young Frazer, on the other hand, who walked beside him, had grown merrier and even less cautious than before. Now that the Canary wine had fired his brain, other considerations were cast aside, all policy forgotten. The air of refinement and courtliness which, being so well assumed, had previously seemed genuine, left him suddenly. He became but an ill-bred roysterer, singing, as he started back, various catches of ribald songs, while Gorm, the bear-ward, arm-in-arm with Peter Sharp, followed not over-steadily, and several other tipplers, who, from their windows in the bridge houses, had seen the gathering before Watkins’s leather-shop, hurried out to bring up the rear with a chorus of vulgar jesting.

At the Southwark Gate Peter Sharp, the needle-maker, who by now was leading the motley throng with an apish dance, having caught the spirit of hilarity, came to a stand-still and turned to the bear-ward, who was shambling after him as steadily as his[26] bandy legs and tipsy condition would allow. “’S bodikin!” he exclaimed. “Now tell me, jovial Bruin-baiter, didst ever see so remarkable a sight?” He pointed ahead of him to a young girl approaching the gateway on the High Street, escorted by a man who was evidently her servant. “Here’s a wench with a ruff, indeed!”