"Hast any friend on the road to-night, good Captain?" inquired Sir Hugh.
"I was consorted," said the Captain, "as far as Oxford by one who over-rode me on the way soon after leaving London, and whom I left at Oxford with a purpose of following hitherward. He is a native of Stratford, and one of pleasanter mood I never travelled withal. The man, I think, you know."
"And his name?" inquired Sir Hugh. "Come, fill your glass."
"William Shakespeare," said the Captain. "He who wrote the play we saw in London."
Sir Hugh laid down his pipe, and rose to his feet. "Is Shakespeare coming back?" he said. "'Fore Heaven, thou canst not think, my good friend the pleasure such information gives me. Thou canst not tell what I feel towards that young man—so little known, yet so well appreciated."
"Ha," said the Captain, "so have I heard you say."
"I have before named to thee," said Sir Hugh, "former passages in which my family became acquainted with this Shakespeare, and how we received an inestimable service from him in his early youth. And I tell thee now my very soul yearned to go to that man when in London and clasp him to my heart, but I was ashamed. I gave ear to the tales of his enemies; I believed him to have become worthless and an outcast in the world. And, as I shamed to take part with him in adversity, so I shame to see his face in his hour of triumph. But I love that man. Nay, I am old, Captain, but the words of his poetry, as we listened to it that night, yet ring in mine ears."
"Truly then," said the Captain, whose rough nature was in something moved, "your friendship is not ill bestowed. This Shakespeare hath bestirred himself in your nephew's favour, and procured his release from the graver charge of treason. He hath interested the Queen, through my Lords of Essex and Southampton, and hath given me a clue by which I have discovered the villany of our Stratford lawyer here, Pouncet Grasp, the secret foe through whose influence the Earl of Leicester was made instrumental. Nay, Shakespeare hath been your good friend, Sir Hugh."
"And is he in sooth coming back to Stratford?" said Sir Hugh, rubbing his hands. "In prosperity or adversity, he shall be welcome as if he were mine own son."
"Truly," said the Captain, "I can in some sort almost feel the same towards this friend of thine, for never travelled I with one who so cheered the long miles 'twixt post and post. He was right pleasant and facetious all the miry way 'twixt Acton and Oxbridge. I wished the miles twice us long whilst we pricked across the waste land towards Beaconsfield. Neither wind nor rain, or mud or mire, could alter his merry mood, as, by night, we made our way towards Walting Town; and when we lost our route, and were nearly drowned in the marshes of Abingdon, he turned our danger into a jest. Nothing came amiss to this Shakespeare; he had a saying for every mistake, and a good word for every misfortune."