they never looked upon the sorrow and anguish and guilt of this unquiet world.

Let us imagine Shakespeare stopping at the corner of the village-road, ere he turned into the footway across the fields, to cast a glance back. The familiar gable-roofed cottage peered through the darkness, and he saw Anne, too, though she might not be substantially present, in all her beauty and all her truth, with his "mind's eye :"

"Here is her hand, the agent of her heart;
Here is her oath for love, her honour's pawn;
Oh, that our fathers would applaud our loves,
To seal our happiness with their consents! "1

Whether he quitted Stratford by night or day, tradition does not report. Perhaps he stole from his loft, like Whittington, in the early morning, while it was still dark, and the whole town was locked in sleep. As he issues from his master's house, and softly closes the door, a hasty glance at the sky may show him that "Charles' wain is over the new chimney." 2 He has no time to lose, yet possibly he found a moment to take a farewell look at his father's house, and throw a pebble at his mother's window, ere, with heavy heart and quickened steps, he made his way through the broad market-place to Clopton's bridge. One look at the flowing river; one fond glance behind, where the town lies in a shadowy but familiar mass, like his past life; and he turns his face forward, where lies the unknown future. But, whatever his regrets, or whatever his misgivings, he must now go on. He has crossed the Avon!

160

XV.

ON THE TRAMP.

THOSE poor despised lads of bygone time-those wighterrants, who, without either lance or shield, gold or friends, set out on their adventures-our Dick Whittington and Will Shakespeare, claim from us an interest which we do not give to King Arthur and his Round Table. We tread that lumbering, crumbling old bridge over the Avon with a feeling of veneration, as we reflect that it was there Shakespeare took leave of his native town, and passed on into the wide world. He passed on,—with his gentle, open heart, his breast flowing with the milk of human kindness, his soul heaving with generous aspirations, and " no man cried God save him."1 In silence and darkness he went on his way, leaving home and kindred and friends behind.

Aubrey tells us that he was now eighteen; and his report is confirmed by Dowdall, who says he broke his indentures to run away. Tradition, as we have seen, asserts that the venison was taken when he was unmarried; and it is undeniable that he left Stratford within a few days of that adventure consequently, before his nineteenth year. Thus the two oldest authorities agree with tradition in the date; and against this joint testimony later writers adduce nothing but conjecture, with which they would fain persuade us that Shakespeare did not leave Stratford till he was twentythree.

The raid on Charlecote Park was a mere lapse in the 1 King Richard II.,' act v. 2.

lad of eighteen: in the man of three-and-twenty, a husband and parent, it would be a crime. It is beside the question to say that Shakespeare was in Stratford at a later date; for the Lucy note intimates that he only absented himself "for a time;" and Aubrey, though he makes him depart at eighteen, informs us that he always visited Stratford once a year, so that his subsequent presence there affords no argument. Rowe, who is followed by all later biographers, is not an authority on the point, as he came after Aubrey and Dowdall, and his information-some of which has been proved incorrect-was not obtained by personal inquiry.

The flight of the poet was certainly accomplished on foot. The ordinary mode of travelling was on horseback, in company with the carrier, whose horses were employed for the conveyance of passengers, as well as goods, just as mules are still used in Spain. We learn from the carrier, in the First Part of King Henry IV.,'1 that marketings and packages were transported in panniers :-"I have a gammon of bacon and two cases of ginger to be delivered as far as Charing Cross." His mate apprises us that live stock were conveyed in the same manner. "Odsbody! the turkeys in my pannier are quite starved." The roads of those days were not made for carts; and even the carriages of the gentry could only be dragged slowly along by six horses, which did not prevent them from sticking in the mud, or often altogether breaking down. Indeed, the roads were spoken of as mere horseways, as when Edgar declares that he knows the whole route to Dover," both stile and gate, horseway and footpath.'

Shakespeare shows a familiar acquaintance with the uses of carriers, as of every other mystery :-" I prithee, Tom, beat Cut's saddle: put a few flocks in the point; the poor jade is wrung in the withers out of all rest." But he did 'King Lear,' act iv. 1.

1 'King Henry IV., Part III.,' act ii. 1. 36 2 Ibid.

4 King Henry IV., Part I.,' act ii. 1.

M

not travel in their company on this occasion; for besides that the few pence in his pocket would not meet such a charge, there were special reasons why he should keep out of their way, inasmuch as they were noted as carriers of tales as well as of bacon and turkeys, and he had now a particular objection to giving a clue to his address. We may be fully satisfied that as he was so valiant as to play the coward with his indenture, he showed it "a fair pair of heels and run for it." He "run from his master to London."

"Methinks I scent the morning air.' It came sweet and fresh from the hedges and fields, as he trudged along the London road, now picking his way through a brook, now floundering in ruts deep as his knee. From the ridge of the Red Horse he could sweep his eye over the old loved valley behind-over the winding Avon, the tapering spire of Stratford, and far on to soaring Ingon and old Snitterfield bush. But it was too near home to linger, and during the early part of his journey he was not likely to let the grass grow under his feet. It is not to be imagined that his second day's stage fell short of Oxford, which is a bare forty miles from Stratford, no great feat for a sturdy lad. But night must have fallen ere he entered the classic city, to him so venerable, and, indeed as the seat of the Muses, almost holy. What a commentary on human institutions, that the king of poets first entered it as a vagrant, and, perhaps, found no bed but the step of a college gateway! Not that either man or beast would find any lack of accommodation in the roomy inns; for old Harrison avers that "every comer is sure to be in clean sheets, wherein no man hath lodged since they came from the laundress, or out of the water wherein they were last washed. If the traveller have a horse, his bed doth cost him nothing; but if he go on foot, he is sure to pay a penny for the same." 1 If he was sure to pay no more, inns have Description of England.'

degenerated in their charges as well as their sheets; and Oxonians of the present day, with their Scriptural predilections, may sigh for the age which asked from the traveller no more than the twopence paid by the Good Samaritan, whose payment to the host was thus a fair remuneration at the time of the translation of the Bible.

Possibly, Shakespeare now made his first acquaintance with the "Crown tavern," to which he was afterwards wont to come on horseback, an honoured guest; but if he preferred to save his penny, a hale young fellow would find no bad chamber in the porch of St. Mary's church, where our Lady kept watch, from her niche above, over his slumbers. Shakespeare might "sit here on the church bench till two,' and then resume his way, fearing to wait for dawn. It may have been on this occasion that he met with the constable at Grendon, where he might arrive at the close of the fourth day. Aubrey, indeed, says :-"I think it was Midsummer night that he happened to lie there," associating the immortal Dogberry with Midsummer Night's Dream,' instead of Much Ado about Nothing.' But we shall make it appear that Shakespeare was on his way to London in April, and this, in fact, quite agrees with the statement of Aubrey himself, who says that he started when he was "about eighteen," and he would then be just that age, his birthday occurring on the 23rd.

When Aubrey was at Oxford in 1642, Dogberry was still living; and it is mentioned that he was personally known to his friend Joseph Howe, who came from the same parish. Shakespeare was more likely to have made his acquaintance on this journey, when he was a fugitive, than at any other time, for it was one of Dogberry's functions to "comprehend all vagrom men," 2 and, indeed, he makes it the whole duty of the watch, a fact rather significant. Travellers in those

Much Ado about Nothing,' act iii. 1.

2 Ibid., act iii. 3.