Anne Feversham

by J. C. Snaith

Thus William Kemp and John Heming remained well in the shadow of the tavern wall. But when their distracted friend came out of the inn, perhaps a little sooner than they had expected him to do so, they proceeded to follow him at a respectful distance. Without betraying their own presence, they contrived to keep him well in view.

Certainly there was very good ground for such solicitude. The tragedian swayed about from side to side like a ship in a gale, now up one deserted street, now down another. And all these dark purlieus of the city swarmed with perils at that hour of the night. Moreover, the ostensible condition of this pedestrian, the vagaries of whose gait certainly resembled those of a man far gone in liquor, seemed to cry aloud for the attentions of the vigilant cutpurse or the lurking footpad.

With unseeing eyes, with unstable limbs, with mind insensible of its surroundings, with steps not knowing whither they were bent, the tragedian walked the byways of the city during the whole of that night. Like the fate-riven figures in those soul-shaking tragedies in whose delineation he excelled all men, he was at the mercy of an anguish of mind that was tearing him in pieces.

This was a large and noble nature. And bitterly it was rent because it had not been more vigilant. Richard Burbage felt himself unworthy of the sacred duty imposed upon him by his fraternal intimacy with the poet. He had an insight into human nature which enabled him to understand a certain weakness that must inevitably attend such transcendent powers as those of William Shakespeare. And this understanding seemed to lay the charge upon him of watching over this man who was not as other men.

To this trust Burbage felt he had not been true. Yet it was not easy to know by what means he could have saved his friend from his terrible pass. Times and again he had besought him to be prudent, and his counsels had been urged with intense conviction. None realized more clearly than Burbage that it was indeed a perilous hour for any man to be concerned with treason. The Queen’s temper was implacable. She who had done to death a kinswoman and a queen because her own personal safety was held to be remotely threatened was not likely to know the meaning of pity in the case of an humble play-actor who had mingled so openly in the cause of a condemned traitor.

Burbage mourned the madness of his friend. Pacing the dark streets of the city during the watches of the night in a state of mind bordering upon frenzy, he was a man self-tormented. Yet after all, he was in no wise to blame. No grace of his, no vigilance, indeed, no human foresight could have averted this tragic issue.

The two comrades of the tragedian kept the swaying figure ever in view. Wherever it went that night they followed it. Hour after hour Burbage wandered purposeless about the city. His grief, silent and contained though it was, was a thing dreadful to behold.

Towards midnight he came to the river. A new fear then gripped the hearts of his comrades. Very stealthily they crept up closer behind him. What more likely than that one in such a frame of mind should have recourse to those dark waters which have done so much to ease the misery of the world? Bareheaded, unsteady of gait, wild of mien, the tragedian walked hour by hour upon the very brink of death. And all that time his two friends watched and waited yet dared not show themselves.

The night was oppressively hot. The summer air was charged with pent-up forces, and while it was still dark these sought opportunity to wreak themselves upon the thirsting earth. The moon and stars were hid; all the heavens were a dense mass of pitch; presently came lightning and peal upon peal of thunder. It was the prelude to a terrific storm and the man by the verge of the river welcomed it with every fiber of his being.

The words of Lear were yet unborn. But in such a night and tempest of the soul was to walk that figure which this unhappy man was one day to teach the ages to pity. His head was bare and unbent to the storm; a hurricane lashed the upturned face; he was drenched to the skin; and yet this rage of heaven was as nought to the tumult in the mind of one poor tragedian.