"And now, Master Grasp," he said, "we will take your's, and the depositions of the men you have brought with you, who saw this Shakespeare in the act of burying the buck's-hide in the orchard of the Lucy Arms."
Meantime whilst these transactions were taking place at Charlecote, the unconscious delinquents were again assembled at the hostel, where we fear, it must be confessed, more mischief was being plotted against the quieter portions of the community.
The spirit of mischief, and the love of sport, was, after all, the chief mover of the whole party. They enjoyed those stolen pleasures, and, indeed, doubly relished the banquets they furnished forth, from the very circumstances of their being so procured.
On the present occasion, the presiding genius of the tavern—the jovial Froth, with Pierce, Caliver, and Careless, were the parties assembled in the parlour of the Lucy Arms.
'Twas the time, according to the magnificent wight Armado, "when beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which is called supper,"—about the sixth hour.
The meal was accompanied by sauce of the best quality, hunger, and savoured by good humour and hilarity. It consisted of a smoking haunch from the very buck we have already heard so much controversy about, and which was washed down by large draughts of liquor, various in kind, and exquisite in flavour.
It would have done the reader's heart good to have beheld mine host of the tavern, with the sleeves of his doublet tucked up, standing at the table to carve the savoury joint, and whilst he ever and anon partook of a morsel and pledged his guests in a bumper, waiting upon them and uttering his quaint sayings.
William Shakespeare and Diccon Snare had promised to be of the party on this evening, but from some cause or other which was unexplained, neither had kept the appointment.
Meanwhile the supper was finished, the haunch devoured down to the very bone, the napkin was removed, and the sparkling liquors in their quaint-cut bottles and flasks being placed upon the board, the party sat in for a carouse. They had all been over to Warwick on that day, and pleasure and action gave a zest to the evening's entertainment and the enjoyment of the hour; still the absence of Shakespeare and Snare made the evening's enjoyment, after all, seem incomplete. There was a feeling of something wanting to crown the joy of the party; for those who had once been in the society of the delightful Will, would be likely, without knowing the extent of their feelings at the moment, to experience a terrible void if he disappointed them.
The assemblage, however, were not men to allow the hours to hang on hand; and in the hope and expectation that their friends would join them, they carried on the war in jovial style. Their jests principally were levelled against Sir Thomas Lucy, whose rude and overbearing keepers they were the more pleased at gaining a triumph over; inasmuch as one or two of their own party had before been severely punished for offences against the game laws—offences, which men of their sort looked upon in the light of no offence at all, and rather as a sort of feather in their caps, anything but a theft; or, if a theft, a species of stealing which those of spirit, and ranking as gentlemen, had a right to indulge in: for what says the old doggrel?