"Surely, surely, after what you have told me: why not, Judith?" was the placid answer.

"There would be nothing ghostly about him then?"

"There would be no secret, Judith," said Prudence, gravely, "that you have to keep back from your own people."

"Well, well, we will see what the future holds for us," said Judith, in the same careless fashion. "And if the young gentleman come not back to Stratford, why, then, good fortune attend him, wherever he may be! for one that speaks so fair and is so modest sure deserves it. And if he come not back, then shall your heart be all the lighter, dear Prue; and as for mine, mine will not be troubled--only, that I wish him well, as I say, and would fain hear of his better estate. So all is so far happily settled, sweet mouse; and you may go in to supper with me with untroubled eyes and a free conscience: marry, there is need for that, as I bethink me; for Master Parson comes this evening, and you know you must have a pure and joyful heart with you, good Prudence, when you enter into the congregation of the saints."

"Judith, for my sake!"

"Nay, I meant not to offend, truly; it was my wicked, idle tongue, that I must clap a bridle on now--for, listen!----"

They were come to New Place. There was singing going forward within; and one or two of the cas.e.m.e.nts were open; but perhaps it was the glad and confident nature of the psalm that led to the words being so clearly heard without:

The man is blest that hath not bent To wicked rede his ear; Nor led his life as sinners do, Nor sat in scorner's chair.

But in the law of G.o.d the Lord Doth set his whole delight, And in that law doth exercise Himself both day and night.

He shall be like the tree that groweth Fast by the river's side; Which bringeth forth most pleasant fruit In her due time and tide; Whose leaf shall never fade nor fall, But flourish still and stand: Even so all things shall prosper well That this man takes in hand.

And so, having waited until the singing ceased, they entered into the house, and found two or three neighbors a.s.sembled there, and Master Walter was just about to begin his discourse on the G.o.dly life, and the substantial comfort and sweet peace of mind pertaining thereto.

Some few days after this, and toward the hour of noon, the mail-bearer came riding post-haste into the town; and in due course the contents of his saddle-bags were distributed among the folk ent.i.tled to them. But before the news-letters had been carefully spelled out to the end, a strange rumor got abroad. The French king was slain, and by the hand of an a.s.sa.s.sin. Some, as the tidings pa.s.sed quickly from mouth to mouth, said the murderer was named Ravelok, others Havelok; but as to the main fact of the fearful crime having been committed, there was no manner of doubt. Naturally the bruit of this affair presently reached Julius Shawe's house; and when the timid Prudence heard of it--and when she thought of the man who had been in hiding, and who had talked with Judith, and had been so suddenly and secretly summoned away--her face grew even paler than its wont, and there was a sickly dread at her heart. She would go to see Judith at once; and yet she scarcely dared to breathe even to herself the terrible forebodings that were crowding in on her mind.

CHAPTER X.

A PLAY-HOUSE.

But Judith laughed aside these foolish fears; as it happened, far more important matters were just at this moment occupying her mind.

She was in the garden. She had brought out some after-dinner fragments for the Don; and while the great dun-colored beast devoured these, she had turned from him to regard Matthew gardener; and there was a sullen resentment on her face; for it seemed to her imagination that he kept doggedly and persistently near the summer-house, on which she had certain dark designs. However, the instant she caught sight of Prudence, her eyes brightened up; and, indeed, became full of an eager animation.

"Hither, hither, good Prue!" she exclaimed, hurriedly. "Quick! quick! I have news for you."

"Yes, indeed, Judith," said the other; and at the same moment Judith came to see there was something wrong--the startled pale face and frightened eyes had a story to tell.

"Why, what is to do?" said she.

"Know you not, Judith? Have you not heard? The French king is slain--murdered by an a.s.sa.s.sin!"

To her astonishment the news seemed to produce no effect whatever.

"Well, I am sorry for the poor man," Judith said, with perfect self-possession. "They that climb high must sometimes have a sudden fall. But why should that alarm you, good Prue? Or have you other news that comes more nearly home?"

And then, when Prudence almost breathlessly revealed the apprehensions that had so suddenly filled her mind, Judith would not even stay to discuss such a monstrous possibility. She laughed it aside altogether.

That the courteous young gentleman who had come with a letter from Ben Jonson should be concerned in the a.s.sa.s.sination of the King of France was entirely absurd and out of the question.

"Nay, nay, good Prue," said she, lightly, "you shall make him amends for these unjust suspicions; that you shall, dear mouse, all in good time.

But listen now: I have weightier matters; I have eggs on the spit, beshrew me else! Can you read me this riddle, sweet Prue? Know you by these tokens what has happened? My father comes in to dinner to-day in the gayest of humors; there is no absent staring at the window, and forgetting of all of us; it is all merriment this time; and he must needs have Bess Hall to sit beside him; and he would charge her with being a witch; and reproach her for our simple meal, when that she might have given us a banquet like that of a London Company, with French dishes and silver flagons of Theologic.u.m, and a memorial to tell each of us what was coming. And then he would miscall your brother--which you know, dear Prudence, he never would do were he in earnest--and said he was chamberlain now, and was conspiring to be made alderman, only that he might sell building materials to the Corporation and so make money out of his office. And I know not what else of jests and laughing; but at length he sent to have the Evesham roan saddled; and he said that when once he had gone along to the sheep-wash to see that the hurdles were rightly up for the shearing, he would give all the rest of the day to idleness--to idleness wholly; and perchance he might ride over to Broadway to see the shooting-match going forward there. Now, you wise one, can you guess what has happened? Know you what is in store for us?

Can you read me the riddle?"

"I see no riddle, Judith," said the other, with puzzled eyes. "I met your father as I came through the house; and he asked if Julius were at home: doubtless he would have him ride to Broadway with him."

"Dear mouse, is that your skill at guessing? But listen now"--and here she dropped her voice as she regarded goodman Matthew, though that personage seemed busily enough occupied with his watering-can. "This is what has happened: I know the signs of the weather. Be sure he has finished the play--the play that the young prince Mamillius was in: you remember, good Prue?--and the large fair copy is made out and locked away in the little cupboard, against my father's next going to London; and the loose sheets are thrown into the oak chest, along with the others. And now, good Prue, sweet Prue, do you know what you must manage? Indeed, I dare not go near the summer-house while that ancient wiseman is loitering about; and you must coax him, Prue; you must get him away; sometimes I see his villain eyes watching me, as if he had suspicion in his mind----"

"'Tis your own guilty conscience, Judith," said Prudence, but with a smile; for she had herself connived at this offence ere now.

"By fair means or foul, sweet mouse, you must get him away to the other end of the garden," said she, eagerly; "for now the Don has nearly finished his dinner, and goodman-wiseman-fool will wonder if we stay longer here. Nay, I have it, sweet Prue: you must get him along to the corner where my mother grows her simples; and you must keep him there for a s.p.a.ce, that I may get out the right papers; and this is what you must do: you will ask him for something that sounds like Latin--no matter what nonsense it may be; and he will answer you that he knows it right well, but has none of it at the present time; and you will say that you have surely seen it among my mother's simples, and thus you will lead him away to find it and the longer you seek the better. Do you understand, good Prue?--and quick! quick!"

Prudence's pale face flushed.

"You ask too much, Judith. I cannot deceive the poor man so."

"Nay, nay, you are too scrupulous, dear mouse. A trifle--a mere trifle."

And then Prudence happened to look up, and she met Judith's eyes; and there was such frank self-confidence and audacity in them, and also such a singular and clear-shining beauty, that the simple Puritan was in a manner bedazzled. She said, with a quiet smile, as she turned away her head again:

"Well, I marvel not, Judith, that you can bewitch the young men, and bewilder their understanding. 'Tis easy to see--if they have eyes and regard you, they are lost; but how you have your own way with all of us, and how you override our judgment, and do with us what you please, that pa.s.ses me. Even Dr. Hall: for whom else would he have brought from Coventry the green silk stockings and green velvet shoes?--you know such vanities find little favor in his own home----"

"Quick, quick, sweetheart, muzzle me that gaping ancient!" said Judith, interrupting her. "The Don has finished; and I will dart into the summer-house as I carry back the dish. Detain him, sweet Prue; speak a word or two of Latin to him; he will swear he understands you right well, though you yourself understand not a word of it----"

"I may not do all you ask, Judith," said the other, after a moment's reflection (and still with an uneasy feeling that she was yielding to the wiles of a temptress), "but I will ask the goodman to show me your mother's simples, and how they thrive."

A minute or two thereafter Judith had swiftly stolen into the summer-house--which was s.p.a.cious and substantial of its kind, and contained a small black cupboard fixed up in a corner of the walls, a table and chair, and a long oak chest on the floor. It was this last that held the treasure she was in search of; and now, the lid having been raised, she was down on one knee, carefully selecting from a ma.s.s of strewn papers (indeed, there were a riding-whip, a sword and sword-belt, and several other articles mixed up in this common receptacle) such sheets as were without a minute mark which she had invented for her own private purposes. These secured and hastily hidden in her sleeve, she closed the lid, and went out into the open again, calling upon Prudence to come to her, for that she was going into the house.

They did not, however, remain within-doors at New Place, for that might have been dangerous; they knew of a far safer resort. Just behind Julius Shawe's house, and between that and the garden, there was a recess formed by the gable of a large barn not quite reaching the adjacent wall. It was a three-sided retreat; overlooked by no window whatsoever; there was a frail wooden bench on two sides of it, and the entrance to it was partly blocked up by an empty cask that had been put there to be out of the way. For outlook there was nothing but a glimpse of the path going into the garden, a bit of greensward, and two apple-trees between them and the sky. It was not a n.o.ble theatre, this little den behind the barn; but it had produced for these two many a wonderful pageant; for the empty barrel and the bare barn wall and the two trees would at one time be transformed into the forest of Arden, and Rosalind would be walking there in her pretty page costume, and laughing at the love-sick Orlando; and again they would form the secret haunts of Queen t.i.tania and her court, with the jealous Oberon chiding her for her refusal; and again they would become the hall of a great northern castle, with trumpets and cannon sounding without as the King drank to Hamlet.

Indeed, the elder of these two young women had an extraordinarily vivid imagination; she saw the things and people as if they were actually there before her; she realized their existence so intensely that even Prudence was brought to sympathize with them, and to follow their actions now with hot indignation, and now with triumphant delight over good fortune come at last. There was no stage-carpenter there to distract them with his dismal expedients; no actor to thrust his physical peculiarities between them and the poet's ethereal visions; the dream-world was before them, clear and filled with light; and Prudence's voice was gentle and of a musical kind. Nay, sometimes Judith would leap to her feet. "You shall not!--you shall not!" she would exclaim, as if addressing some strange visitant that was showing the villainy of his mind; and tears came quickly to her eyes if there was a tale of pity; and the joy and laughter over lovers reconciled brought warm color to her face. They forgot that these walls that enclosed them were of gray mud; they forgot that the prevailing odor in the air was that of the malt in the barn for now they were regarding Romeo in the moonlight, with the dusk of the garden around, and Juliet uttering her secrets to the honeyed night; and again they were listening to the awful voices of the witches on the heath, and guessing at the sombre thoughts pa.s.sing through the mind of Macbeth; and then again they were crying bitterly when they saw before them an old man, gray-haired, discrowned, and witless, that looked from one to the other of those standing by, and would ask who the sweet lady was that sought with tears for his benediction. They could hear the frail and shaken voice:

"Methinks I should know you, and know this man; Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorant What place this is: and all the skill I have Remembers not these garments; nor I know not Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me; For, as I am a man, I think this lady To be my child Cordelia."

And now, as they had retired into this sheltered nook, and Prudence was carefully placing in order the scattered sheets that had been given her, Judith was looking on with some compunction.

"Indeed I grieve to give you so much trouble, sweetheart," said she. "I would I could get at the copy that my father has locked away----"

"Judith!" her friend said, reproachfully. "You would not take that? Why, your father will scarce show it even to Julius, and sure I am that none in the house would put a hand upon it----"

"If it were a book of psalms and paraphrases, they might be of another mind," Judith said; but Prudence would not hear.

"Nay," said she, as she continued to search for the connecting pages. "I have heard your father say to Julius that there is but little difference; and that 'tis only when he has leisure here in Stratford that he makes this copy writ out fair and large; in London he takes no such pains. Truly I would not that either Julius or any of his acquaintance knew of my fingering in such a matter: what would they say, Judith? And sometimes, indeed, my mind is ill at ease with regard to it--that I should be reading to you things that so many G.o.dly people denounce as wicked and dangerous----"

"You are too full of fears, good mouse," said Judith, coolly, "and too apt to take the good people at their word. Nay, I have heard; they will make you out everything to be wicked and sinful that is not to their own minds; and they are zealous among the saints; but I have heard, I have heard."

"What, then?" said the other, with some faint color in her face.