William Shakespeare as He Lived: An Historical Tale

by Henry Curling

"Ah, a very simple lad, and a wilful. Had it not been for these things—these scraps of bad verse—I could have made matters up, I dare be sworn." And Sir Hugh (who by this time had reached Henley Street) dismounted, and entered the house of the wool-comber.

How well the Knight of Charlecote had bestirred himself, and how well he had been assisted in his prosecution of the deer-stealers by the wretched Grasp, was evident, since Sir Hugh found that Snare was in jail at Warwick, Caliver in durance at Coventry, and that William Shakespeare had fled.

Yes, Shakespeare had fled from Stratford-upon-Avon. How trivial a circumstance did that seem at the time! Except his own family, none seemed to know or care much about him. A mere youth was driven from his home to avoid punishment for a trifling indiscretion; persecuted by a man of high and chivalrous feeling, and who knew him not, but by the ill report of the vile; a man who, had he but suspected the great worth and brilliant genius of the fugitive, would have been one of the first to befriend, in place of injuring and driving him, alone and friendless, from his home. And that act, whilst it lent an imperishable eclat to his own name, was, perhaps, the exciting cause of the greatness of the offender.

It was dark night when Shakespeare left his home. The resolve was suddenly taken: his high spirit could not brook the thought of degradation and punishment at the suit of the Knight of Charlecote. The misrepresentations, the misconceptions, and the absurd reports of the Stratford noodles, had disgusted him; and (even amidst the laughter caused by the lampoon affixed to the gates of Charlecote) he fled from the town.

Added to these feelings, there was the natural ambition which a young man, a husband, and a father, entertained to enter into some wider sphere of action, find where the talents he possessed might be brought into play. Domestic difference, too, and undeserved reproach,—or, if deserved, ill-timed, galled his spirit, and his gentle nature rebelled against the treatment he had received. The fire in the flint, 'tis said, "shows not till it be struck."

'Twas night when he left his home. To his mother alone had he confided his intent, and to her he had entrusted the care of both wife and children. 'Twas two hours past midnight when he donned his hat and cloak, took his quarter-staff in his hand, and prepared to start.

Gently he ascended the stairs, and entered his sleeping-room. The handsome Ann was buried in a deep sleep; and as one snowy arm encircled her infant, her dark-brown locks lay like a cloud upon the pillow. What a picture of rustic English beauty did she present! One kiss of her parted lips, and he descended the stairs, and let himself out by the back-door.

He was obliged to be cautious as he crossed the orchard, and gained the open fields in rear of his dwelling. It would, however, we opine, have been somewhat dangerous had the emissaries of Grasp molested him on this night, as his spirit, although bruised, was not broken, and he would have been a difficult person to capture. Ere he left the orchard, he turned and looked long and fixedly at his own and his father's dwelling. He felt that, perhaps, he might never again behold the sloping roofs which covered relatives so dear. All, save one (his mother), were buried in deep sleep, and unconscious of his flight. A minute more, and he was gone from his native town. Hurrying onwards over the meadows and woodlands—avoiding the high-road—across the country towards Warwick—"over park, over pale—through brake, through briar." Without any fixed notion as to his route, London was his destination; and with a mind ill at ease, the solitude of the woods was most congenial to his thoughts. Thus he traversed, alone and at night, the first few miles of that delicious and park-like scene between his native town and Warwick; and still, as his steps were destined towards the latter town, old haunts, and points of interest, lured him from the direct line; and the breaking dawn found him standing, leaning upon his staff, on Blacklow Hill—a spot, we dare say, well known to the majority of our readers. The sweetness of this locality, and the delicious scene around, for the moment took him from his own particular griefs; his mind reverted to the terrible deed of stern and wild justice it had been the scene of.

In the hollow of the rock beneath his feet, Piers Gaveston, the minion of Edward the Second, had met his sudden fate.

Amidst the fern and on the mossed face of the rugged rock were still to be seen the name of the victim, and the date in which the deed had been done, rudely cut at the moment of the execution.