William Shakespeare as He Lived: An Historical Tale

by Henry Curling

"A man I am, crossed with adversity,
My riches are these poor habiliments,
Of which, if you should here disfurnish me,
You take the sum and substance that I have."

Those who have left the home and haunts of their childhood, and all there so dearly loved, can best describe the feeling of desolation which the one solitary wanderer for the first time feels, and which each mile seems to add to. He who has first embarked for a distant clime, leaving all worth living for, to "make a hazard of new fortunes in the world," can best remember "how slow his soul sailed on, how swift his ship."

When Shakespeare left the neighbourhood of Kenilworth, all was strange and new to him; and he might then be said to have entered upon "the wide and universal theatre."

All travel at this period was performed on horseback. Roads were foul, ill-made, and difficult; so much so, that in winter a man might have been dead in London three mouths before his next heir at York heard the news. The towns and villages, too, were then few, small, and far apart; and as Shakespeare inquired his weary way onwards, how sweet in remembrance seemed the bowery beauty of that sequestered spot he had quitted—sweet Stratford! and where he knew every face he met, where he saw and mixed with his own family every day, every hour. Sometimes, as he lay along, and rested beneath the shade of melancholy boughs, he loved to ponder upon those dearly-loved relatives, and imagine what they were doing, what they thought of his absence, and whether they missed him. His mother, too, she who had always so loved her first-born, who could read his high desert, and appreciate his brilliant talents, when all else passed him by, how would she miss him!

"Oh this will make my mother die of grief."

The tears would then course one another down his cheek, and he would start up and hurry onwards again. He had no fixed route, but inquired his way from village to town, and from hamlet to city. His good constitution, and out-door habits, made it no hardship to him to pass the night upon the mossed bank in the open air. The cottage afforded him refreshment, and the thin drink of the shepherd from his bottle was oft-times offered in return for a few minutes' conversation upon the wold; the hawthorn bush the shade in which he rested; and thus he proceeded onwards in his flight, purposely deviating from the direct road, as well from inclination as that he felt it likely some search might be made after him either by friends or enemies.

The few coins he had in his pocket when he started were soon expended, and he experienced at times, during his progress, the pangs of hunger without the means of allaying it, and this perhaps was an ordeal Shakespeare was fated to go through. He was destined to feel the "uses of adversity" ere he rose, by his own mighty efforts, above the world. He was to see human nature in all its varieties. To experience the depressing weight of poverty, ere he surmounted his worldly cares, as the lion shakes the dew-drops from his mane. Adversity was to be the finishing school of his studies—nature the book presented. In this school he took his degree, and which all the learning of the ancients, all the pedants of the antique world would have failed in teaching him. Nor was his attention confined to the actions of men as he mingled amongst them. He was the exact surveyor of the inanimate world as he travelled through it, and his descriptions in after-life were grafted from the contemplation of things as they really existed.

To a solitary traveller on foot at this period there was considerable peril. The resolute ruffian, the "resolved villain," who lived by levying contributions on the road, was often to be met with. Nay, even strong parties of travellers were frequently attacked, and robbed, and murdered, 'twixt town and town. Still all unarmed, except the stout staff he carried in his hand, and the small dagger worn at his girdle, and which served to cut up the food he ate, Shakespeare held on his way. The lowly ruffian as he emerged from the thick cover which overhung the road occasionally scowled upon him as he passed, and then let him proceed unquestioned. There was something in the eye, which met his glance, which told the robber of hard blows and desperate resistance, whilst the unfurnished manner in which he travelled promised little in the shape of booty. Once or twice the wayfarer had joined a party of carriers, who, with other travellers in their company, were going the same route, but, as he frequently diverged from the road, he soon lost such companionship and made his way alone, through by-roads and foul ways, and across the dreary wastes and commons, at that period extending occasionally for many miles. It was on the fourth evening of his journey that, having made a long detour from the main road, he again came into it about five miles from Stoney Stratford. The day had been lovely, he had wandered far, and as he laid himself down beneath some huge trees and watched the bright track of the setting sun, he fell into a sound sleep.

'Twas "the middle summer's spring." The bank upon which he lay looked a perfect haunt of the elfin crew, but whether or not, on this night, Shakespeare dreamt a dream of Midsummer, or whether he dreamt at all, we are unable to say. Whilst he slept, however, he was suddenly awakened by the sound of voices near.

As he opened his eyes, by the moon's light he observed three persons standing a few yards from him. The spot on which he reclined was so shadowed by the overhanging branches and thick with fern that he had himself been undiscovered, and a few moments' observation convinced him that the men he beheld were "squires of the night's booty." Their heavy boots, their soiled doublets, the rusted breast-plates they wore, their slouched hats, and untrimmed beards, altogether indeed convinced him they were thieves.