"And your fair daughter?" said Shakespeare; "I see her not here. How fares she?"
"A little dashed in spirit with this matter you wot of—the wayfarer whom we had to bury yesterday," said the dame.
"He is then dead. I thought his end was near."
"He died soon after you left," said Dame Hathaway. "The crowner sat on's body, and the man Martin from the Hall was examined with Lawyer Grasp and Master Dismal, and the man were known to be an escaped traitor. And so he's buried in a hole like a dog; and there's an end. And a good end too, if men will go about to compass such mischief as he seems to have been hatching all his life."
"And fair Mistress Anne," said Shakespeare, "is she too busied like yourself, 'weaving her thread with bones'?"
"No," said Dame Hathaway, "though she is occupied, she is out in the orchard with Mopsy, and Lawyer Grasp, and Master Doubletongue."
"Grasp!" exclaimed Shakespeare, as a sort of strange feeling shot across him; "what doth the scrivener at Shottery?"
The dame smiled, knowingly. "The bright day hath brought him forth mayhap," said she.
"'Tis the bright day that brings forth the adder," said Shakespeare; "and that Doubletongue too. I am sorry they are acquainted with Mistress Anne."
"Why so?" said the dame. "Master Grasp is rich. He hath store of moneys 'tis said. He hath been saying some pretty things to Anne; nay, in good sooth I think he, in some sort, affects her."