he or his Page_bearing thither a three-legged stool, hired of a theatre boy for sixpence. There, on similar stools at the sides of the stage, he would find others of his kind, some idly chatting, some playing cards; and could hear, through the rear curtains of arras screening the partition behind the stage, the talk and movements of the players in their tiring-room, hurrying the final preparations for the performance.
One of these gallants, having lighted his pipe, said, lispingly, to another, and with a kind of snigger in the expression of his mouth:
"'Twill be a long time ere my lord of Southampton shall again sit here seeing his friend Will's plays."
Southampton, indeed, was in the Tower for complicity in the insurrection of his friend, the Earl of Essex, who had died on the block in February, and whose lesser fellow conspirators were now having their trials.
"A long time ere any of us may see Will's plays here, after this week," answered the other lord, dropping the rush with which he had been tickling a third lord's ear. "Don't you know, the chamberlain's actors are ordered to travel, for having played 'Richard the Second' for the Essex men when the conspiracy was hatching?"2
"Why, I've been buried in love—a pox on the sweet passion!—dallying at the feet of a gentlewoman in Blackfriars, the past month; and a murrain take me if I know what's afoot of late!"
"What I've told you; and that is why we've had so many different plays all in a fortnight, and two new ones of Will Shakespeare's. The players must needs have new pieces ready for the country towns, especially for the universities. These chamberlain's actors were parlously thick with the Essex plotters; 'tis well they have friends at court, of other leanings, like Wat Raleigh—else they might find themselves ordered to a tower instead of to a tour!"
Ignoring the pun, and glancing up at the black drapery with which the stage was partly hung, the first exquisite remarked:
"Will Shakespeare must be in right mood for tragedy nowadays—his friend Southampton in prison, and Essex a head shorter, and himself ordered to the country. Burn me if I know how a high-hearted knave like Shakespeare, that gentlemen admit to their company, and that has had the court talking of his poems, can endure to be a dog of an actor, and to scribble plays for that stinking rabble out yonder to gape at!"
Whatever were Will Shakespeare's own views on that subject, he had at that moment other matters in mind. In the bare tiring-room beyond the curtained partition at the rear of the stage, he moved calmly about among the actors, some of whom were not yet wholly dressed in the armor or robes or other costume required, some of whom were already disguised in false beard or hair, some already painted as to the face, some walking to and fro, repeating their lines in undertones, with preoccupied and anxious air; and so well did Master Shakespeare overcome the agitations of an author who was to receive five pounds for his new play, and of a stage-manager on whom its success largely depended, that he seemed the least excited person in the room. He had put on the armor for the part of the ghost, but his flowing hair—auburn, like his small pointed beard—was not yet confined by the helmet he should soon don. His soft light brown eyes moved in swift but careful survey of the whole company; and then, seeing that the actors for the opening scene were ready, and that the others were in sufficient preparation for their proper entrances, he gave the signal for the flag and trumpet aloft.
At sight of the flag, late comers who had not yet reached the playhouse mended their speed—whether they were noblemen conveyed by boat from the great riverside mansions of the Strand; gentlemen riding horseback, or in coaches, or borne in wherries from city water-gates; or citizens, law scholars, soldiers, sailors, rascals, and plain people, arriving by ferry or afoot by London Bridge or from the immediate neighborhood. At sound of the trumpet, the crowd in the theatre uttered the grateful "Ah!" and other exclamations natural to the moment. From the tiring-room the subordinate actor who played the first sentinel had already passed to his post on the stage, by way of the door in the partition and of an interstice in the rear curtains; other actors stood ready to follow speedily; the front curtains were drawn apart, and the first performance of Mr. William Shakespeare's earliest stage version of "Hamlet"—a version something between the garbled form now seen in the "first quarto" and the slightly altered form extant in the "second quarto"—was begun.
In the tiring-room—where the actors awaiting their entrance cues could presently hear their fellows spouting on the stage without, and the "groundlings" in the yard making loud comments or suggestions, and the lords laughing lightly at their own affected chaff—the pale yellow light of the chill March afternoon fell from high-placed narrow windows. It touched the face of one tall, slender young player, whose mustaches required a close inspection to detect that they were false—for at that time, when the use of dye was general, it was common for natural beards to look artificial. The hair of this youth's head also was brown, but it was his own. His blue eyes and rather sharp features had a look half conciliating, half defiant, and he was manifestly trying to conceal, by standing perfectly still instead of fidgeting or pacing the floor, a severe case of that perturbation which to this day afflicts the chief persons concerned in a first performance of a play.
He was approached by a graceful young person in woman's clothes—with stomacher, puffed sleeves, farthingale, high-heeled shoes—who had been gliding about, now with every step and attitude of the gentle damsel he seemed to be, now lapsing into the gait and manner of the pert boy he was, and who said to the inwardly excited but motionless player:3
"Marry, Hal, take it not as 'twere thy funeral! Faith, thou'rt ten times shakier o' the knees than Master Shakespeare himself, and he writ the play. See how he claps his head-piece on, to go and play the ghost, as if he were but putting on his hat to go to the tavern for a cup of claret."
Hal looked as if he would deny the imputed shakiness; but seeing that the clever boy "Ophelia" was not to be fooled, he gave a quick sigh, and replied:
"'Tis my first time in so prominent a part. I feel as if I were the sign in front of the theatre—a fellow with the world on his back. May I be racked if I don't half wish they'd given this 'Laertes' to Gil Crowe to play, after all!"
"Tut, Master Marryott! An thou pluck'st up no more courage, thou shalt ever be a mere journeyman. God knows thou art bold enough in a tavern or a brawl! Look at Mr. Burbage—he has forgot himself and us and all the world, and thinks he is really Hamlet the Dane."
Hal Marryott, knowing already what he should see, glanced at Burbage, who paced, not excitedly but as in deep meditation, near the entrance to the stage. A short, stout, handsome man, with a thoughtful face, a fine brow, a princely port; like Shakespeare, he was calm, but while Shakespeare had an eye for everything but apparently the part himself was to play, Burbage was absorbed entirely in his own part and unconscious of all else, as if in the tiring-room he was already Hamlet from the moment of putting on that prince's clothes.4
"What a plague are you looking at, Gil Crowe?" suddenly demanded Hal Marryott of another actor, who was gazing at him with a malicious smile evidently caused by Hal's ill-concealed disquietude. "An it be my shoes, I'll own you could have made as good if you'd stuck to your proper trade!"
"Certes," replied Crowe, who wore the dress of Rosencrantz, and whose coarse face bore marks of dissipation, "I'm less like to deny having been a shoemaker, which is true, than some are to boast of having been gentlemen, which may be doubtful."
Young Marryott's eyes flashed hot indignation. Before he could control himself to retort, an actor in a rich robe and a false white beard,5 who had overheard Master Crowe's innuendo, strode up and said:
"Faith, Crowe, you wrong the lad there. Who hath ever heard him flaunt his birth before us? Well you know it, if he doth at times assert his gentle blood, 'tis when forced to it; and then 'tis by act and manner, not by speech. Go your ways, Crowe; thou'st been overfree with the pottle-pot again, I'm afeard!"
"Nay," put in the impudent Ophelia, his elbows thrust out, his hands upon his hips, "Master Crowe had picked out the part of Laertes for himself; and because Master Shakespeare chose Hal to play it. Hal is a boaster and not truly gentle born."
"You squeaking brat," said Crowe, "but for spoiling thy face