On the Lightship Part 5

"Let us go then to the Bull," the stranger suggested, "where in a small room behind the tap one may smoke a pipe for threepence under the tutelage of this very seaman, who acquired the art in our Virginia colonies."

"Agreed!" cried Master Francis willingly; though at another time he might have rejected such an offer. "'Twill be an experience to remember."

"Marry," replied the other, "'tis he who lags behind the cavalcade who must take the dust. For my part I like not to be outfaced by any idle boaster who may lisp--'Ah, 'tis an art to keep the bowl aglow! Ah, shouldst see me fill my mouth with smoke, and blow it out in rings!

Odd's bodkin, the Duke himself said bravo!'"

The stranger's mimicry of the mincing gallants of the day was to the life, and as they turned their steps toward the tavern, Master Francis laughed with satisfaction at finding himself in such good company. When presently his companion quoted Horace, he ventured to inquire at what school he had read the cla.s.sics.

"At none," was the reply. "Let those who will perform the thres.h.i.+ng. I am content to pick up kernels here and there like a sleek rat in a farmer's barn. Your tippling scholar of the taproom will set forth a rasher of lean Xenophon with every cup of sack, and as for churchmen--they be all unnatural sons who so bedeck their mother tongue in sc.r.a.ps and shreds of foreign phrase, the poor beldame walks abroad as motley mantled as a fiddler's wanton."

"But surely--_Just.i.tia eum cuique distribuit_--as Cicero hath it,"

Master Francis cried in protest against such heresy. "You will not deny that an apt quotation lends grace to our too barren English."

"'Tis a thin sauce to a rich meat," replied the other; adding modestly, "I am, an't please you, sir, but one who, having little Latin and less Greek, must make a s.h.i.+ft with what is left to him."

"Your speech belies you, sir," retorted Master Francis courteously, "for it proclaims a man of nice discrimination. I could swear you are a doctor of the law."

"Then would you be forsworn," replied the other, laughing, "for, by the grace of G.o.d, I am near kinsman to the dancing poodle of a country fair.

Come any afternoon at three o'clock to the Curtain Play-house at Sh.o.r.editch, and there for sixpence you may see my antics."

"Ah, then you are a player!" Master Francis cried, well pleased.

"For the lack of a more honest calling," his companion answered with a gesture as who should say, "Tell me where can be found an honester?"

"Then we are in like case," laughed Master Francis. "_Fere totus mundus exercet histrionem_, says Phaedrus; or as one might put it bluntly, 'All the world's a stage.'"

"Methinks our English hath the better jingle," commented the player.

"Would that some wordsmith might e'en recoin these ancient mintages to fill the meager purses of our mouths!"

They had come now to the broad low archway leading to the courtyard of the Bull, and pa.s.sing in beneath its shadow, Master Francis recalled the plays he had witnessed there in boyhood.

"Ah," said his companion, "'tis not so long since we poor players hung our single rag of curtain where we might. Now we have playhouses of our own, and when the servants of the Lord Chamberlain shall occupy the Globe at Bankside, you shall see how plays may be presented. But _Navita de ventis de tauris narrat orator_, as thy gossip Propertius hath it, though I like best the homely adage, 'A tinker will talk of his trade.'"

They found the seaman in the little room behind the tap, a veritable high priest of some mystic cult in dignity. He bowed a hearty welcome to the visitors and presently made clear to them the true relations.h.i.+p between his pot of dried tobacco and the earthen pipe bowls at the ends of hollow reeds. He cautioned them to have a care, when the coal of fire was applied, not to draw the smoke into their mouths too suddenly and fall to coughing. He was a swarthy man, with bra.s.s rings in his ears and long hair braided in a queue behind, and his account of the savage king held captive until the inner secrets of the art of smoking were revealed by way of ransom was in itself a yarn well worth his fee.

"I pray you, gentlemen, hold not the pipe too lightly lest it be overset and mar your garments," he instructed them. "And, by your leave, it must be grasped between the thumb and second finger, nicely balanced that the forearm grow not weary. Should the brain become afflicted by the vapor it is well to pause and inhale some breaths of common air. Extend the little finger carelessly and compose the face as though the flavor were agreeable, for to spit and grimace at the pipe were most inelegant."

"Out upon you for an arrant knave!" cried Master Francis, springing to his feet, exasperated by the solemn affectation of superior wisdom.

"'Tis but an indifferent entertainment at the best, and as for the art, I know of none too great a fool to compa.s.s it."

He had grown a trifle pale about the lips and his nerves tingled.

"Nay, then," protested his fellow investigator, "were the taste less vile and the savor less like a smithy 'twould make an excellent good physic for one afflicted with too much health."

The sailor was a man of evil disposition, who had not only sailed with Raleigh's G.o.dless mariners but, had the truth been known, in other service still less creditable. Hearing his enterprise thus flouted, his anger rose, and with a mighty oath he turned upon his clients.

"A pest upon such horse boys!" he exclaimed. "Get back to the stables whose smells best suit you. Leave elegant accomplishments to your betters."

Master Francis, grown fearful lest his knees give way beneath him, and blinded by a film which swam before his eyes, moved unsteadily toward the door, half throwing, half dropping his pipe upon the oaken table, where the red clay bowl fell shattered in a dozen fragments.

"Hold!" cried the sailor. "Not another step, my gallant, till you have paid me ten s.h.i.+llings for my broken pipe."

He sprang upon the slighter man and, grasping him by the shoulders, would have done him violence had not the other smoker interposed a doubled sinewy fist beneath his irate nose and bade him let go his hold.

As the command was not instantly obeyed, a sharp blow followed.

"Beshrew my blood!" the pirate roared, turning to strike at random.

"Gadslid!" returned the player, facing him and bringing both fists into action with such good effect that presently the table groaned beneath the weight of the struggling freebooter, while pipes, jug, and precious weed went flying.

The uproar brought the company from the taproom at a run, customers, servants, the drawer, the pot-boy, a brace of hostlers, until the small room filled to suffocation. Swords were drawn, cudgels brandished, above the din the seaman's oaths boomed like the cannon of a sloop of war in action.

"Good friends," the player bawled out, springing to a stool to command attention, "behold to what a pa.s.s the smoking of this weed will bring a man. I pray you bind this fellow fast and get him safe to Bedlam before some mischief happens."

Master Francis sank down into the corner of a high-backed seat, too ill for much concern with what pa.s.sed about him, and it was not till some moments later, in the open air and propped against a wall, that consciousness returned. His champion in the late encounter stood beside him.

"Sir," said the student, "it is to you I owe my preservation, though, by my honor, I should have cut a better figure in the skirmish had not the vapors of that vile weed overpowered me. How made you our escape?"

"Even as aeneas with Anchises on his back," replied the other, laughing.

"'Twas high time to take ourselves away, being but two against so many, though, by my faith, I've rarely seen a merrier opening for a game of skull cracking."

The player, whether actuated by humor or generosity, seemed disposed to make light of the whole affair. Grasping his companion's arm he supported that gentleman's still uncertain steps in the direction of the lodging-house of Mistress Hodges. He spoke of broils and frays as though such pastimes were of every-day occurrence with men of spirit, whether the sport were putting a pinnace crew of drunken sailors to their heels, or by some trickery outwitting the watch. At the door Master Francis could do no less in hospitality than invite so stanch an ally to enter.

"Come to my chambers and rest awhile," he said, adding regretfully, "though they be plain indeed, and offer no better entertainment than my poor company."

"Good cheer enough," replied the other, stepping back for a better view of the house. "By my estates in Chancery!" he cried, "yon bristling roof that sets its lance against the very buckler of the moon hath met mine eyes before. 'Twas here, unless my memory be a lying kitchen wench, our n.o.ble Christopher did lodge, the prince and potentate of pewter pots."

"And knew you Master Christopher?" asked Master Francis with increasing interest.

"Marry, I knew him well," replied the player. "Marry, a poet. Marry, a rimester to couple you a couplet while your Flemish fighter quaffs a mug of sack, and pay the reckoning with a sonnet to his landlord's honesty. 'The first line,' he would say, 'shall tell the weight of it.'

And here he did set down a naught. 'So likewise with the second, which doth sing its breadth; the third proclaims its depth'--another naught, and thus until the measure of the verse was writ. 'Now add them for thyself,' he bids the rum-fed Malmsey monger, 'and by the thirst of Tantalus, the sum shall blazon both thine honor and my debt.'"

"Methinks 'twas but a scurvy trick," protested Master Francis, laughing tolerantly. "What said the host to it?"

"In faith," replied the player, "he found the meter falling short and clamored for money. 'Money!' quoth Kit. 'Think well on't! for if, as men of reason all agree, naught is better than money, you are overpaid in getting naught!'"

"His was a pretty wit indeed," a.s.sented Master Francis. "Enter!" he urged with a gesture of hospitality.

"Nay!" cried the other. "As I am a just man it is perilous to enter into a writer's castle where one without offense is often lashed with lyrics or--what is more fearful--pilloried in prose. And furthermore, this Hebe of all Hodges, I have heard, this Helen of Houndsditch, hath a stout broomstick hid behind her door for players," he added, making a pretense of looking about him warily as he followed his host up the stairs, Master Francis going first to light a candle with a flint and steel.

"Come in," he said as the flame flickered up, "and welcome to my chambers, though this poor farthing dip is little better than a glowworm that doth serve to make the darkness visible."

"So s.h.i.+nes a good deed in a naughty world," returned the other, throwing himself into a seat.

"You are yourself a poet!" Master Francis cried, "for you temper the cold iron of rough speech with oil of metaphor."

"Nay," said the player, "I am no rimester, but like a scissors-grinder I sometimes put a keener edge on better men's inventions. Faith," he continued, looking about him with approval, "I knew not that our Kit was housed so well. This is a very bower in which to woo the Muse. Friend, had I your table and your chair, your inkwell and your wit, it would not take me long to be the owner of one hundred pounds."

"One hundred pounds?" gasped Master Francis. "Believe me, it is not from inkwells that such miraculous drafts are made." He waved his hand toward the scattered papers on the table. "Look," he said, "it hath taken me a year to make that much fair paper valueless."