AN APPEAL.
Great changes were in store. To begin with, there were rumors of her father being about to return to London. Then Dr. Hall was summoned away into Worcestershire by a great lady living there, who was continually fancying herself at the brink of death, and manifesting on such occasions a terror not at all in consonance with her professed assurance that she was going to a happier sphere. As it was possible that Dr. Hall would seize this opportunity to pay several other professional visits in the neighboring county, it was proposed that Susan and her daughter should come for a while to New Place, and that Judith should at the same time go and stay with her grandmother at Shottery, to cheer the old dame somewhat. And so it happened, on this July morning, that Judith's mother having gone round to see her elder daughter about all these arrangements, Judith found herself not only alone in the house, but, as rarely chanced, with nothing to do.
She tried to extract some music from her sister's lute, but that was a failure; she tried half a dozen other things; and then it occurred to her—for the morning was fine and clear, and she was fond of the meadows and of open air and sunlight—that she would walk round to the grammar school and beg for a half-holiday for Willie Hart. He, as well as Bess Hall, was under her tuition; and there were things she could teach him of quite as much value (as she considered) as anything to be learned at a desk. At the same time, before going to meet the staring eyes of all those boys, she thought she might as well repair to her own room and smarten up her attire—even to the extent, perhaps, of putting on her gray beaver hat with the row of brass beads.
That was not at all necessary. Nothing of the kind was needful to make Judith Shakespeare attractive and fascinating and wonderful to that crowd of lads. The fact was, the whole school of them were more or less secretly in love with her; and this, so far from procuring Willie Hart such bumps and thrashings that he might have received from a solitary rival, gained for him; on the contrary, a mysterious favor and good-will that showed itself in a hundred subtle ways. For he was in a measure the dispenser of Judith's patronage. When he was walking along the street with her he would tell her the name of this one or that of his companions (in case she had forgotten), and she would stop and speak to him kindly, and hope he was getting on well with his tasks. Also the other lads, on the strength of Willie Hart's intermediation, would now make bold to say, with great politeness, "Give ye good-morrow, Mistress Judith," when they met her, and sometimes she would pause for a moment and chat with one of them, and make some inquiries of him as to whether her cousin did not occasionally need a little help in his lessons from the bigger boys. Then there was a kind of fury of assistance instantly promised; and the youth would again remember his good manners, and bid her formally farewell, and go on his way, with his heart and his cheeks alike afire, and his brain gone a-dancing. Even that dread being, the head-master, had no frown for her when she went boldly up to his desk, in the very middle of the day's duties, to demand some favor. Nay, he would rather detain her with a little pleasant conversation, and would at times become almost facetious (at sight of which the spirits of the whole school rose into a seventh heaven of equanimity). And always she got what she wanted; and generally, before leaving, she would give one glance down the rows of oaken benches, singling out her friends here and there, and, alas! not thinking at all of the deadly wounds she was thus dealing with those lustrous and shining eyes.
Well, on this morning she had no difficulty in rescuing her cousin from the dull captivity of the school-room; and hand in hand they went along and down to the river-side and to the meadows there. But seemingly she had no wish to get much farther from the town; for the truth was that she lacked assurance as yet that Master Leofric Hope had left that neighborhood; and she was distinctly of a mind to avoid all further communications with him until, if ever, he should be able to come forward openly and declare himself to the small world in which she lived. Accordingly she did not lead Willie Hart far along the river-side path; they rather kept to seeking about the banks and hedge-rows for wild flowers—the pink and white bells of the bind-weed she was mostly after, and these did not abound there—until at last they came to a stile; and there she sat down, and would have her cousin sit beside her, so that she should give him some further schooling as to all that he was to do and think and be in the coming years. She had far other things than Lilly's Grammar to teach him. The Sententiæ Pueriles contained no instruction as to how, for example, a modest and well-conducted youth should approach his love-maiden to discover whether her heart was well inclined toward him. And although her timid-eyed pupil seemed to take but little interest in the fair creature that was thus being provided for him in the future, and was far more anxious to know how he was to win Judith's approval, either now or then, still he listened contentedly enough, for Judith's voice was soft and musical. Nay, he put that imaginary person out of his mind altogether. It was Judith, and Judith alone, whom he saw in these forecasts. Would he have any other supplant her in his dreams and visions of what was to be? This world around him—the smooth-flowing Avon, the wooded banks, the wide white skies, the meadows and fields and low-lying hills: was not she the very spirit and central life and light of all these? Without her, what would these be?—dead things; the mystery and wonder gone out of them; a world in darkness. But he could not think of that; the world he looked forward to was filled with light, for Judith was there, the touch of her hand as gentle as ever, her eyes still as kind.
"So must you be accomplished at all points, sweetheart," she was continuing, "that you shame her not in any company, whatever the kind of it may be. If they be grave, and speak of the affairs of the realm, then must you know how the country is governed, as becomes a man (though, being a woman, alack! I cannot help you there), and you must have opinions about what is best for England, and be ready to uphold them, too. Then, if the company be of a gayer kind, again you shall not shame her, but take part in all the merriment; and if there be dancing, you shall not go to the door, and hang about like a booby; you must know the new dances, every one; for would you have your sweetheart dance with others, and you standing by? That were a spite, I take it, for both of you!—nay, would not the wench be angry to be so used? Let me see, now—what is the name of it?—the one that is danced to the tune of 'The Merchant's Daughter went over the Field?'—have I shown you that, sweetheart?"
"I know not, Cousin Judith," said he.
"Come, then," said she, blithely; and she took him by the hand and placed him opposite her in the meadow. "Look you, now, the four at the top cross hands—so (you must imagine the other two, sweetheart); and all go round once—so; and then they change hands, and go back the other way—so; and then each takes his own partner, and away they go round the circle, and back to their place. Is it not simple, cousin? Come, now, let us try properly."
And so they began again; and for music she lightly hummed a verse of a song that was commonly sung to the same tune:
Maid, will you love me, yes or no?
Tell me the truth, and let me go.