THE PASSING OF TABBARD.
I see an angel hovers o’er thy head,
And with a vial full of precious grace,
Offers to pour the same into thy soul.
—Faustus, scene xiv.
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, “This was a man:”
—Julius Cæsar, v, 5.
The Gloom that pervaded the great city during the prevalence of the plague was a figure of changing size that at times came with a rush, and again grew into place beside the hearth-stone, slowly and almost imperceptibly, and then at length assumed such dreadful proportions that the affrighted watchers buried their sad faces in trembling hands, as if to drown the vision. A pall covered him from head to foot, and his face was unseen; but there was a suspicion that it was fleshless, and whether he came to the open stall or closed shop, before or after, the visit there of the plague, his presence numbed the hands of toil, and then either folded them in prayer, or dropped them in stolid apathy. He pervaded almost every dwelling; he was where the morning orisons arose in churches and cathedrals; he walked the open streets even in the sunlight; he sat with the judge upon the bench; he knelt with the bride at the altar, and even where full cups were lifted high, with nods indicative of good health and peace, he came and went like a restless spirit.
As Tabbard and Gyves slowly crossed the street from the office of the Justice, a cart delayed their steps for a moment. Their breasts were almost against its heavy wheels as it passed, and their eyes were on a level with the top of its box, which was filled above its edges. The jolting of the stones shook the contents so that the man in black beside the driver, through fear of losing part of the load, kept his eyes fixed upon the rear end-board of the cart.
“Ugh!” exclaimed Gyves, drawing back with a shudder, “’Tis the death cart. See, they have piled them in like dead mutton.”
“Look at that stiff beggar with fallen chops hanging over the wheel,” remarked Tabbard, with face wrinkling in his disgust.
“They are in too great haste to keep them properly covered. And this is the earliest load I have seen hurried through the streets.”
“Don’t they carry at all times?” inquired Tabbard.
“Nay, only after sundown and just before sunup.”
“The plague must be growing worse,” remarked Tabbard, for the moment longing for the fresh, sweet air of Kent, and heartily wishing that he was out of that foggy street, which had suddenly grown as melancholy as a church-yard of new-made graves. He almost forgot to limp, or lean heavily on the constable as they reached the opposite walk.
“God save you, sir. It is breathing in every ward both north and south of Holborn, Cheapside and Fenchurch, and as far west as Gray’s Inn and Temple Bar. Red paint has gone up in price, I hear, for nearly every house owner has had to buy some to daub the cross on his door. I saw one man fall on Coleman street to-day, and in less than an hour he was dead in the alley where they had moved him. Oh, man! it would be well for you, if you had never ventured in from the fields; for I see that you have the healthful looking face and air of a countryman.”
“Does one die quickly?” asked Tabbard, with a quaver in his voice.
“Too quickly to send either for doctor, or priest, in some cases,” replied Gyves.
“And is there no help?”
“Little before and none after the black spots appear.”
“And do many die?”
“Thousands.”
“Near here?” inquired Tabbard, shuddering as he looked at the gloomy buildings around him.
“Nay, mostly in the dwellings and tenements. With one death in the family, you can count that every member will follow. Ah! here is the Windmill.”
They turned from the sidewalk to mount the steps leading to the tavern. The building was a quaint structure built by the Jews at least three hundred years before. Once a synagogue, next a dwelling and then a tavern, it had, despite all these changes in its use, maintained some of the characteristics of each. Like a minister, who had become a soldier and then deserted for some safer but less honorable calling, it had retained an outward expression of sanctity in the narrow, pointed lancet-windows in its front and its six-columned portico; while, as evidence of its passage through an intermediate period, oriel windows jutted out from what might be second and third stories. The painting of a windmill, hanging between the two middle columns of the portico, published the present purposes of the place with as loud a flourish as trumpets might announce.
Into what was once the inner narthex of the synagogue, they passed. A stone floor was under foot, while a low vaulted ceiling rose overhead, its base being supported by attached columns with decorated capitals and elaborately carved corbels. Here, where devout Hebrews had once paused to arrange their gabardines, or stamp thoughts of usury for one short session from their minds before entering the body of the church, the sacrilegious Gentile had set his snares of destruction. It had become the tap-room of the tavern.
Near the foot of the rood-stair, which once led to the gallery, stood a brilliantly lighted bar, with a range of butts of Malmsey, kegs of beer and sack, deep in the recess behind it; and on the near shelves, against a bastard wall, was a glittering line of decanters, mugs and tankards.
The heavy round tables were encircled by many persons drinking under suspended lamps, and several groups of men were standing here and there on the sanded floor. A quietness, except for the low buzz of conversation and an occasional laugh, pervaded the room, thus speaking well for the sobriety of the inmates and the respectability of the tavern; still the crowd was as mixed as could be found anywhere except in the middle aisle of St. Paul’s. There, in the nave of that famous cathedral, dedicated to pious uses, in the aisles, before the ambries, and beside the font, during intervals between divine service, horsemen, usurers, cut-throats, beggars, bargainers of all kinds, doctors, lawyers and noblemen, plied their avocations, held their meetings, hatched their conspiracies and settled accounts.
Here there were no beggars, such being barred entrance; but their tatters could be seen on the portico whenever the door swung open. But men, in apparel fit for noblemen, walked in and out; others, with the hardened visages of men who dreamt continually of the gallows and shuddered at every flash of light across their paths, drank at the bar, or gathered under some of the isolated columns.
At one table was a country squire in dun-colored serge coat, with full bearded face, bending over a trencher filled with a half devoured pheasant. Before him was his city cousin, in velvet cap, with a lovelock suspended from under the green rim down across his ruffled collar. Decorated with pointed mustachios and framed in powdered periwig and high ruff, he was typical of the dandy of the period.
If the raw-boned, ungainly young man, with repellant features, who monopolized the conversation at another table, was not Ben Jonson [[note 33]], then Gyves, who pointed him out to Tabbard, had selected some one who looked enough like that genius, just rising to eminence, to be confounded with him.
“He is an actor,” said Gyves, “who lately returned from the Low Countries with the company of soldiers of which he was a volunteer, a most companionable man: can drink deeper and swear louder than any one around him.”
“Doth he make no choice of companions?” questioned Tabbard, noticing that some of the group looked misplaced anywhere but dangling from a gibbet’s arm.
“Not he,” said Gyves, “according to his stories, he has messed with the worst of the cut-throats of the Straits, kept by the side of clapperdoggers on their rounds, learned all the slang of the purlieus of Cheapside, and would as lief hobnob with a ruffler as with a nobleman or parish priest.”
“Hath he good sense?”
“The very best, I think, for I heard the Justice say that he wrote plays of the people, and must mingle with them to learn their ways.”
By this time they had approached a vacant table, and as Tabbard seated himself with pretended difficulty, he said, “Now sit you there; my friend, and have one cup with me before you venture out.”
Gyves required no second invitation.
“’Tis a bad night to hunt the highways for clapperdoggers,” said he, as he dropped into a chair, and pulling his whiskers glanced around the room with an air of familiarity as great as that of a chained mastiff in his own kennel.
“Is it a beggar you are after?” asked Tabbard with a forced air of unconcern.
“Not exactly, and I correct my expression,” returned Gyves, “but one even less harmful.”
“Some poor devil who has failed to attend church for a Sunday or two, eh?” [[note 34].]
“Nay, I took in two on such complaints this morning, but to-night I shall hail in a blasphemer.”
“Hardly to-night,” thought Tabbard, and then he added aloud, “Doth not thy conscience prick thee at times for dragging such men to jail?”
“I am but an instrument of the law,” replied the constable in deep tones, at the same time striking his chest with his fingers evidently in imitation of the voice and action of the Lord High Sheriff. “The man who should have cold sweats is the accuser, the public informer.”
“Are there many of such curs?”
“Enough to keep us busy,” answered Gyves.
“And who has held thy nose to the hot scent?”
“Out cow-herd! I like not thy terms of address,” exclaimed Gyves, bringing his fist down with a ring upon the table, “A hot scent with a nose upon it raises the figure of a dog. It takes no keen wit to see that. And as thou hast called it my nose, then forsooth, I am the dog.”
“Nay, nay!” exclaimed Tabbard, “I meant no offense. Here, I clink glasses with thee as evidence of good-fellowship.”
They raised the glasses of wine which the drawer had set before them.
“Who was the accuser of the man you bear a warrant for?”
“Bame,” said the constable, lowering his voice. “He is one of the prime movers against Papists and scoffers of religion.”
“Of the established church, eh?”
“Nay, a sour, morose Brownist, who strikes at all but his own sect.”
“A gad fly,” said Tabbard.
“An asp, more like; a carrion-eating swine!” exclaimed Gyves, as though the words were the froth of bitter recollections.
“Is his rope long?”
“As long as the laws under which he acts.”
“And who is the accused in this case?”
“Chris—”
He checked himself and then continued:
“’Sdeath! When I get the reviler where liberty is a sweet memory only, I will if I choose call aloud his name in every quarter but St. Paul’s.”
“And why not there?”
“He hath attacked the church, ’tis said.”
“Canst thou not recollect his name, over this second glass?” inquired Tabbard, smoothly.
“I said nothing of my recollection being faulty.”
“Hast thou the warrant? If thou hast let me see it,” said Tabbard, with the air and tone of one in command. “Here, some more of that best Rheinish wine,” he thundered to the drawer.
Gyves had never encountered so reckless a spendthrift. His admiration was rising as every glass was lowered. He was in no hurry to go on his quest. The foggy night, and the dark miles between the Windmill and the Roman Wall caused him to embrace the glittering present. The tap-room of the Windmill never appeared so enchanting. Tabbard, despite his rusticity, was growing into a prince. The cultivated caution of the constable oozed away, and he placed the warrant in Tabbard’s hands. Just at that moment Bame walked into the tap-room and came hurriedly toward the table. Tabbard had caught sight of him out of the corner of his eye. He thrust the warrant in his pocket, at the same time giving a significant glance at Gyves, who, with at first a motion that he would retake the paper, subsided on noticing Bame. The latter said, as he reached the table, “How now, Gyves, has the arrest been made?”
“Shortly, sir, shortly,” exclaimed Gyves, scarcely able to conceal his surprise at seeing the sanctimonious-looking Brownist beside him in the tap-room.
“Good faith, man! Get thee out quick, or the fellow will be fled. Thou hast already squandered an hour here. Come, stir thyself!”
The tones were peremptory and husky with suppressed anger. Gyves knew Bame’s power. He felt that temporary action was necessary to preserve his office. True, he could not act without the warrant, and he dared not expose to Bame his folly by demanding its return. So, hoping that he could see Tabbard later, and, having procured the warrant, make the arrest, he arose.
“I am off at once—” he said.
“Odds end!” exclaimed Bame savagely, “Don’t stop to mouth words. Push along.”
“And where will you lodge?” asked the constable of Tabbard, who, rejoicing over the complete relief he had secured for his friend Kit, sat there apparently unconcerned.
“Here,” answered Tabbard.
Gyves turned and walked away from them. In going, Bame’s back was toward him, but he saw the smiling face of Tabbard, and striking his own breast, he made a motion with his hand as though to say, “The warrant you have in your pocket deliver to me a little later.”
Tabbard nodded his head understandingly, and the troubled arm of the law passed out of the old Jewry entrance.
Bame scrutinized the late companion of the constable for an interval without changing his position. Tabbard stared back at him with an expression of contempt and hatred, which changed to a smile of triumph as he thought with what exultation he could tear the warrant into shreds before Bame’s eyes. He itched to do it on the instant; but the other man wheeled round and sought a table in a retired corner, from where he continued his scrutiny of Tabbard. There was something about the latter man which jarred a chord in Bame’s memory, and suddenly he recognized him as the person who had been with Marlowe at the Dolphin. This recognition, connected with the fact of the lately interrupted meeting between Gyves and Tabbard, raised his suspicions, and his watching became like that of a hawk.
Tabbard took out the warrant. He opened it curiously and examined the seal. It was the only portion of the paper that assured him of the legal character of the writ. Words in Greek could have conveyed as much meaning as those printed and written on the paper. If he had been convicted of felony, Tabbard would have suffered the severe penalty; for the benefit of clergy would not have availed him. He could not read the Lord’s Prayer in English print.
He folded the paper and then began tearing it into small bits. These he scattered around him, feeling like a life convict taking the first breath of air outside the broken wall of the prison. As he ground the last pieces into the sand under his feet, he lifted his glass of Rheinish wine and threw his head back to drain the contents. The thought of “Sir Kit” was in his mind, a smile played upon his lips.
Could death strike us at the moment of accomplishing good for a friend or for the human race, we might not parley but pass with glorified faces into a peace assuredly in keeping with the joy kindled by the generous act. With few the end comes so gloriously. To the soldier, the martyr, the mother, such passing of the spirit is oft vouchsafed; the first, falling at the head of the victorious forces on the captured battlements; the second, amid flames at the stake; the last, with the first breath of her infant upon her lips already damp with the dew of dissolution.
In the position assumed by Tabbard for his last draught, the bright flame of a suspended lamp flared in his eyes. To him it appeared to swing in a circle, although in fact it was stationary; and the vaulted ceiling seemed rising in air higher and higher, until he looked into the darkness of absolute night. It was his head that swayed instead of the lamp; it was the gradual failure of his eye-sight that raised the phenomenon of the fading ceiling. A violent nausea seized him, so that every fiber of his body shook and his glass fell shivered upon the floor. He groaned so loudly that every one in the room turned his face in his direction. And thus, before staring and startled faces, the quivering man rolled from his chair to the sanded floor. A whisper rose from every lip, except from the pair which grew white in distress. The words were the same from all:
“The plague!”
The stricken man may have heard the two words, but it could have conveyed no new tidings to his mind. Even the shiver of his frame from a draught of cold air would have sprung the belief that the first symptom of the Black Death had appeared. But there was no mistaking the pang that shot through him, like an arrow from a long bow. Could he have seen his face a few moments afterward as Bame saw it, turned upward on the floor, he would have died more suddenly from fright; hæmorrhagic spots discolored it—the unmistakable symbol of internal dissolution. They looked like the black imprints of the fingers of a hand that had been thrust with violence against it.
“Tell him he is safe,” came the broken words from lips moved by a wandering mind.
“Who?” asked Bame, leaning over him.
The dying man did not answer, but the words “Deptford” and the “Earl’s actors” were uttered in his rambling speech.