One or two of the townsfolk have walked forth to meet that traveller and inquire the news, and at length he nears the suburb, spurs on his steed, and enters the inn; an event in the annals of that place which, could the inhabitants have appreciated it, would have doubtless been sufficiently noted.
He came comparatively unknown amongst them, that horseman, unannounced even to his own family. He thought not of his own importance, he knew it not, yet not a building, could it have spoken and felt, but would, we think, have uttered a note of joy. The very bells of the old tower should have rung out a joyous peal, and the hollow steeple of the guild of the Holy Cross have cracked with the reverberation of the sound.
Nay, we can almost wonder that the inhabitants did not, one and all, go forth to greet the rider in the high-crowned hat, long boots, ample cloak, and the long petronels in his girdle, for, take him for all in all, Stratford will never look upon his like again. His capable eye glanced down the High Street, as he rode; a tear glistened on his cheek as he beheld its well-known aspect, and then he spurred his steed, and rode up Henley Street. A few moments more and he was in the midst of his relatives. William Shakespeare had returned to Stratford-upon-Avon.
CHAPTER LXI.
THE DISCOMFITED SCRIVENER.
Grasp's return home was somewhat more sudden than he had intended. He returned indeed in an exceedingly discomfited and excited state.
His friend Dismal was the only person who had gained access to him, and that but for a few moments. During the interview, however, Dismal had gathered from Doubletongue, who also arrived in all haste, that great events had transpired in London, of one sort or other. But so extraordinary and so perturbed did both the lawyer and his friend seem, that except certain incoherent expressions about an attempt upon the Queen's life, a spectre he himself had beheld, and various allusions to poison, assassination, death, destruction, and utter ruin. Dismal completely failed in discovering the exact news the travellers had to tall, and hence the variety of reports circulated through the town. Something certainly seemed to have gone all wrong with the lawyer. His friend Doubletongue had never seen him so put out, and altogether he feared that his wits were going.
To explain the meaning of this agitated and nervous state of the worthy Stratford lawyer, we must go back a few paces in our history.
Grasp, then, it will be remembered, whilst in London, had considerably extended his practice. He had apparently involved Walter Arderne in ruin; he had even carried on his intrigues so as to make the dark Earl, he of Leicester, a party concerned in his plot. For Grasp had given the Earl a hint about certain abbey lands and a manor near Kenilworth, which would fall to the said Earl in the event of Arderne's decease. He had ferreted out the existence of a plot, by means of which he hoped to rise to great preferment; and he had succeeded in beguiling a simple-minded gentleman, resident in Warwickshire, that he was indeed the real and undisputed heir to the estates of the before-named Clara de Mowbray, and actually by bribery, and using all sorts of villainy, got a verdict in such person's favour, and placed him in possession of some portion of the property.