initial commit of ebook 27187HEADmain

128 files changed, 4431 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/27187-8.txt b/27187-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9a7420a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,1426 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Warwickshire Lad, by George Madden Martin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Warwickshire Lad
+       The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare
+
+Author: George Madden Martin
+
+Release Date: November 7, 2008 [EBook #27187]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WARWICKSHIRE LAD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Martin Pettit and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Kentuckiana Digital Library)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A WARWICKSHIRE LAD
+
+[Illustration: Birthplace of Shakespeare]
+
+
+A WARWICKSHIRE LAD
+
+
+THE·STORY·OF·THE·BOYHOOD
+OF·WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
+
+by GEORGE · MADDEN · MARTIN
+
+Author of "Selina," "Emmy Lou," etc.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+ D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
+NEW YORK           LONDON
+         MDCCCCXVI
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY P. F. COLLIER & SON, INC
+
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+Birthplace of Shakespeare                                 _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+"Will clambered up on the settle to think it all over"                17
+
+"Dad bends to tweak the ear of Will"                                  23
+
+"'Ay, but those are brave words, Hammie,' says Gammer"                35
+
+"'Save us! What's that!' cried Gammer"                _facing page_   40
+
+"'Ay, boy, you shall see the players'"                                45
+
+"'An' I shall be a player, too,' ... says Willy Shakespeare"          53
+
+"His mother stepping now and then to the lattice window"              57
+
+"Bound for Grandfather's at Snitterfield they were"                   67
+
+"For instance he knew one Bardolph ... the tapster at the tavern"     73
+
+"Hidden away among the willows ... he spends the morning"             79
+
+"The two have run away ... to wander about the river banks"
+                                                        _facing page_ 86
+
+"He ... trudged up the path and peered in at the open door"           89
+
+"'When the masterful hand, groping, seizes mine, I shall know it'"    93
+
+"This strange thing called Death...."                   _facing page_ 98
+
+"Dad ... sat staring in moody silence"                               101
+
+"Tall, sturdy Will Shakespeare could buy up cattle ... as well as
+    the butcher's son"                                               109
+
+
+
+
+A WARWICKSHIRE LAD
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Little Will Shakespeare was going homeward through the dusk from Gammer
+Gurton's fireside. He had no timorous fears, not he. He would walk
+proudly and deliberately as becomes a man. Men are not afraid. Yet
+Gammer had told of strange happenings at her home. A magpie had flown
+screaming over the roof, the butter would not come in the churn, an' a
+strange cat had slipped out afore the maid at daybreak--a cat without a
+tail, Gammer said--
+
+Little Will quickened his pace.
+
+Dusk falls early these December days, and Willy Shakespeare scurrying
+along the street is only five, and although men are not afraid yet----
+
+So presently when he pulls up he is panting, and he beats against the
+stubborn street door with little red fists, and falls in at its sudden
+opening, breathless.
+
+But Mother's finger is on her lips as she looks up from her low chair in
+the living-room, for the whole world in this Henley Street household
+stands still and holds its breath when Baby Brother sleeps. Brought up
+short, Will tiptoes over to the chimney corner. Why will toes stump when
+one most wants to move noiselessly? He is panting still too with his
+hurrying and with all he has to tell.
+
+"She says," begins Will before he has even reached Mother's side and his
+whisper is awesome, "Gammer says that Margery is more than any ailin',
+she is."
+
+Now chimney corners may be wide and generous and cheerful with their
+blazing log, but they open into rooms which as night comes on grow big
+and shadowy, with flickers up against the raftered darkness of the
+ceilings. Little Will Shakespeare presses closer to his mother's side.
+"She says, Gammer does, she says that Margery is witched."
+
+Now Margery was the serving-maid at the house of Gammer Gurton's
+son-in-law, Goodman Sadler, with whom Gammer lived.
+
+Mother at this speaks sharply. She is outdone about it. "A pretty tale
+for a child to be hearing," she says. "It is but a fearbabe. I wonder at
+Gammer, I do."
+
+And turning aside from the cradle which she has been rocking, she lifts
+small Will to her lap, and he stretching frosty fingers and toes all
+tingling to the heat, snuggles close. He is glad Mother speaks sharply
+and is outdone about it; somehow this makes it more reassuring.
+
+"Witched!" says Mother. "Tell me! 'Tis lingering in the lane after dark
+with that gawky country sweetheart has given her the fever that her
+betters have been having since the Avon come over bank. A wet autumn is
+more to be feared than Gammer's witches. Poor luck it is the lubberfolk
+aren't after the girl in truth; a slattern maid she is, her hearth
+unswept and house-door always open and the cream ever a-chill. The
+brownie-folk, I promise you, Will, pinch black and blue for less."
+
+Mother is laughing at him. Little Will recognizes that and smiles back,
+but half-heartedly, for he is not through confessing.
+
+"I don't like to wear it down my back," says he. "It tickles."
+
+"Wear what?" asks Mother, but even as she speaks must partly divine,
+for a finger and thumb go searching down between his little nape and the
+collar of his doublet, and in a moment they draw it forth, a bit of
+witches' elm.
+
+"Gammer, she sewed it there," says Will.
+
+A little frown was gathering between Mother's brows, which was making
+small Willy Shakespeare feel still more reassured and comfortable, when
+suddenly she gave a cry and start, half rising, so that he, startled
+too, slid perforce to the floor, clinging to her gown.
+
+Whereupon Mother sank back in her chair, her hand pressed against the
+kerchief crossed over her bosom, and laughed shamefacedly, for it had
+been nothing more terrible that had startled her than big, purring
+Graymalkin, the cat, insinuating his sleek back under her hand as he
+arched and rubbed about her chair. And so, sitting down shamefacedly,
+she gathered Will up again and called him goose and little chuck, as if
+he and not she had been the one to jump and cry out.
+
+But he laughed boisterously. The joke was on Mother, and so he laughed
+loud, as becomes a man when the joke is on the women folk.
+
+"Ho!" said Will Shakespeare.
+
+"Sh-h-h!" said Mother.
+
+But the mischief was done and Will must get out of her lap, for little
+Brother Gilbert, awakened, was whimpering in the cradle.
+
+Will clambered up on the settle to think it all over. Mother had started
+and cried out. So after all was Mother afraid too? Of--of things? Had
+she said it all to reassure him? The magpie had flown screaming over the
+house for he had seen it. So what if the rest were true--that the cat,
+the cat without the tail stealing out at daybreak, had been--what Gammer
+said--a witch, weaving overnight her spell about poor Margery? He knew
+how it would have been; he had heard whispers about these things before;
+the dying embers on the hearth, the little waxen figure laid to melt
+thereon, the witch-woman weaving the charm about--now swifter, faster
+circling--with passes of hands above.
+
+[Illustration: "Will clambered up on the settle to think it all over"]
+
+Little Will Shakespeare, terrified at his own imaginings, clutched
+himself, afraid to move. Is that only a shadow yonder in the corner, now
+creeping toward him, now stealing away?
+
+What is that at the pane? Is it the frozen twigs of the old pippin, or
+the tapping fingers of some night creature without?
+
+Will Shakespeare falls off the settle in his haste and scuttles to
+Mother. Once there, he hopes she does not guess why he hangs to her so
+closely. But he is glad, nevertheless, when the candles are brought in.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+But these things all vanish from mind when the outer door opens and Dad
+comes in stamping and blowing. Dad is late, but men are always late. It
+is expected that they should come in late and laugh at the women who
+chide and remind them that candles cost and that it makes the maid testy
+to be kept waiting.
+
+Men should laugh loud like Dad, and catch Mother under the chin and kiss
+her once, twice, three times. Will means to be just such a man when he
+grows up, and to fill the room with his big shoulders and bigger laugh
+as Dad is doing now while tossing Brother Gilbert. He, little Will, he
+will never be one like Goodman Sadler, Gammer's son-in-law, with a lean,
+long nose, and a body slipping flatlike through a crack of the door.
+
+And here Dad bends to tweak the ear of Will who would laugh noisily if
+it hurt twice as badly. It makes him feel himself a man to wink back
+those tears of pain.
+
+[Illustration: "Dad bends to tweak the ear of Will"]
+
+"A busy afternoon this, Mary," says Dad. "Old Timothy Quinn from out
+Welcombe way was in haggling over a dozen hides to sell. Then Burbage
+was over from Coventry about that matter of the players, and kept me so
+that I had to send Bardolph out with your Cousin Lambert to Wilmcote to
+mark that timber for felling."
+
+Now for all Master Shakespeare's big, off-hand mentioning thus of facts,
+this was meant for a confession.
+
+Mary Shakespeare had risen to take the crowing Gilbert, handed back to
+her by her husband, and with the other hand was encircling Will, holding
+to her skirt. She was tall, with both grace and state, and there was a
+chestnut warmth in the hair about her clear, white brow and nape, and in
+the brown of her serene and tender eyes. These eyes smiled at John
+Shakespeare with a hint of upbraiding, and she shook her head at him
+with playful reproach.
+
+Little Will saw her do it. He knew too how to interpret such a look. Had
+Father been naughty?
+
+"You are not selling more of the timber, John?" asked Mother.
+
+"Say the word, Mistress Mary Arden of the Asbies," says Father grandly,
+"and I stop the bargain with your Cousin Lambert where it stands. 'Tis
+yours to say about your own. Though nothing spend, how shall a man live
+up to his state? But it shall be as you say, although 'tis for you and
+the boy. He is the chief bailiff's son--his Dad can feel he has given
+him that, but would have him more. I have never forgot your people felt
+their Mary stepped down to wed a Shakespeare. I have applied to the
+Herald's College for a grant of arms. The Shakespeares are as good as
+any who fought to place the crown on Henry VII's head. But it shall be
+stopped. The land and the timber on it is Mistress Mary Shakespeare's,
+not mine."
+
+But Mary, pushing little Will aside clung to her husband's arm, and the
+warmth in her tender eyes deepened to something akin to yearning as they
+looked up at him. With the man of her choice, and her children--with
+these Mary Shakespeare's life and heart were full. There was no room for
+ambition for she was content. Had life been any sweeter to her as Mary
+Arden of the Asbies, daughter of a gentleman, than as Mary Shakespeare,
+wife of a dealer in leathers? Nay, nor as sweet!
+
+But she could not make her husband see it so. Yet--and she looked up at
+him with a sudden passion of love in that gaze--it was this big,
+sanguine, restless, masterful spirit in him that had won her. From the
+narrow, restricted conditions of a provincial gentlewoman's life, she
+had looked out into a bigger world for living, through the eyes of this
+masterful yeoman, his heart big with desire to conquer and ambition to
+achieve. Was her faith in his capacity to know and seize the essential
+in his venturing, less now than then? Never, never--not that, not that!
+
+"Do as you will about it, John," begs Mary, her cheek against his arm,
+"only--is it kind to say the land is mine? We talked that all out once,
+goodman mine. Only this one thing more, John, for I would not seem ever
+to carp and faultfind--you know that, don't you?--but that Bardolph----"
+
+"He's a low tavern fellow, I allow, Mary--of course, of course. I know
+all you would say--his nose afire and his ruffian black poll ever being
+broken in some brawl, but he's a good enough fellow behind it, and
+useful to me. You needs must keep on terms with high and low, Mary, to
+hold the good will of all. That's why I am anxious to arrange this
+matter with Burbage to have the players here, if the Guild will
+consent----"
+
+"Players?" says Will, listening at his father's side. "What are
+players?"
+
+"Tut," says Dad, "not know the players! They are actors, Will--players.
+Hear the boy--not know the players!"
+
+But Mother strokes his hair. "When I told you a tale, sweet, this very
+morn, you went to playing it after. I was the Queen-mother, you said,
+outside the prison walls, and you and Brother were the little Princes
+in the cruel tower, and thus you played. You stood at the casement, two
+gentle babes, cradling each other in your arms, and called to me below.
+So with the players, child, they play the story out instead of telling
+it. But now, these my babes to bed."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+The next day things seem different. One no longer feels afraid, while
+the memory of Gammer's tales is alluring. Will remembers, too, that
+greens from the forest were ordered sent to the Sadlers for the making
+of garlands for the Town Hall revels. Small Willy Shakespeare slipped
+off from home that afternoon.
+
+Reaching the Sadlers, he stopped on the threshold abashed. The
+living-room was filled with neighbors come to help--young men, girls,
+with here and there some older folk--all gathered about a pile of
+greens in the center of the floor, from which each was choosing his bit,
+while garlands and wreaths half done lay about in the rushes.
+
+But, though his baby soul dreams it not, there is ever a place and
+welcome for a chief bailiff's little son. They turn at his entrance, and
+Mistress Sadler bids him come in; her cousin at her elbow praises his
+eyes--shade of hazel nut, she calls them. And Gammer, peering to find
+the cause of interruption and spying him, pushes a stool out from under
+her feet and curving a yellow, shaking finger, beckons and points him to
+it. But while doing so, she does not stay her quavering and garrulous
+recital. He has come, then, in time to hear the tale?
+
+"An' the man, by name of Gosling," Gammer is saying, "dwelt by a
+churchyard----"
+
+Will Shakespeare slips to his place on the stool.
+
+Hamnet is next to him, Hamnet Sadler who is eight, almost a man grown.
+Hamnet's cheeks are red and hard and shining, and he stands square and
+looks you in the face. Hamnet has a fist, too, and has thrashed the
+butcher's son down by the Rother Market, though the butcher's son is
+nine.
+
+Here Hamnet nudges Will. What is this he is saying? About Gammer, his
+very own grandame?
+
+"Ben't no witches," mutters Hamnet to Will. "Schoolmaster says so. Says
+the like of Gammer's talk is naught but women's tales."
+
+Whereupon Gammer pauses and turns her puckered eyes down upon the two
+urchins at her knee. Has she heard what her grandson said? Will
+Shakespeare feels as guilty as if he had been the one to say it.
+
+"Ay, but those are brave words, Hammie," says Gammer, and she wags her
+sharp chin knowingly; "brave words. An' you shall take the bowl yonder
+and fetch a round o' pippins from the cellar for us here. Candle? La,
+you know the way full well. The dusk is hardly fell. Nay, you're not
+plucking Judith's sleeve, Hammie? You are not a lad to want a sister
+at elbow? Go, now! What say you, Mistress Snelling? The tale? An' Willy
+Shakespeare here, all eyes and open mouth for it, too? Ay, but he's the
+rascalliest sweet younker for the tale. An' where were we? Ay, the fat
+woman of Brentford had just come to Goodman Gosling's house----
+
+[Illustration: "'Ay, but those are brave words, Hammie,' says Gammer"]
+
+"Come back an' shut the door behind you, Hammie; there's more than a nip
+to these December gales. I' faith, how the lad drumbles, a clumsy
+lob----
+
+"As you say, the fat woman of Brentford, one Gossip Pratt by name, an' a
+two yards round by common say she was, an' that beard showing on her
+chin under her thrummed hat an' muffler, a man with score o' years to
+beard need not be ashamed of--this same woman comes to Goodman
+Gosling's, him as dwelt by the churchyard. But he, avised about her
+dealings, sent her speedily away, most like not choosing his words, him
+being of a jandered, queazy stomach, an' something given to tongue. For
+an hour following her going, an' you'll believe me--an' I had it from
+his wife's cousin a-come ten year this simple time when I visited my
+sister's daughter Nan at Brentford--his hogs fell sick an' died to the
+number o' twenty an' he helpless afore their bloating and swelling.
+
+"Nor did it end there, for his children falling ill soon after--a
+pretty dears they were, I mind them, a-hanging of their heads to see a
+stranger, an' a finger in mouth--they falling sick, the woman of
+Brentford come again, an' this time all afraid to say her nay. An'
+layin' off her cloak, she took the youngest from the mother's breast,
+dandling an' chucking it like an honest woman, whereupon it fell
+a-sudden in a swoon.
+
+"An' Goodwife Gosling seizing it, an' mindful of her being a
+witch-woman, calling on the name of God, straightway there fell out of
+the child's blanket a great toad which exploded in the fire like any
+gunpowder, an' the room that full o' smoke an' brimstone as none
+could--Save us! What's that!" cried Gammer.
+
+[Illustration: "'Save us! What's that!' cried Gammer"]
+
+What, indeed! That cry--this rush along the passageway! Will
+Shakespeare, with heart a-still, clutches at Gammer's gown as there
+follows a crash against the oaken panels.
+
+But as the door bursts open, it is Hamnet, head-first, sprawling into
+the room, the pippins preceding him over the floor.
+
+"It were ahind me, breathin' hoarse, on the cellar stairs," whimpers
+Hamnet, gathering himself to his knees, his fist burrowing into his
+eyes.
+
+Nor does he know why at this moment the laughter rises loud. For
+Hamnet cannot see what the others can--the white nose of Clowder, the
+asthmatic old house-dog, coming inquiringly over his shoulder, her tail
+wagging inquiry as to the wherefore of the uproar.
+
+But somehow, little Will Shakespeare did not laugh. Instead his cheeks
+and his ears burned hot for Hamnet. Judith did not laugh either. Judith
+was ten, and Hamnet's sister, and her black eyes flashed around on them
+all for laughing, and her cheeks were hot. Judith flung a look at
+Gammer, too, her own Gammer. And Will's heart warmed to Judith, and he
+went too when she sprang to help Hamnet.
+
+Hamnet's face was scarlet yet as he fumbled around among the rushes and
+the greens for the pippins, and this done he retired hastily to his
+stool. But three-legged stools are uncertain, and he sat him heavily
+down on the rushes instead.
+
+Whereupon they laughed the louder, the girls and the women too--laughed
+until the candle flames flickered and flared, and Gammer, choking over
+her bowl, for cates and cider were being handed round, spilled the drink
+all down her withered neck and over her gown, wheezing and gasping until
+her daughter snatched the bowl from her and shook the breath back into
+her with no gentle hand.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Meanwhile Will plucked Hamnet now blubbering on his stool, by the
+doublet. But Hamnet, turned sullen, shook him off. Perhaps he did not
+know that Will and Judith had not laughed. But since Hamnet saw fit to
+shake him off, Will was glad that just then, with a rush of cold air and
+a sprinkling of snow upon his short coat, Dad came in. His face was
+ruddy, and as he glanced laughingly around upon them all, he drew deep
+breath of the spicy evergreens, so that he filled his doublet and
+close-throated jerkin to their full.
+
+"Good-even to you, neighbors," says Dad. "An' is it great wonder the boy
+will run away to hie him here? The rogue kens a good thing equal to his
+elders. But come, boy; your mother is even now sure you have wandered to
+the river."
+
+And Dad, with a mighty swing, shoulders Will, steadying him with a palm
+under both small feet; then pauses at Mistress Snelling's questioning.
+
+"Is it true," she inquires, "that the players are coming?"
+
+Sandy-hued Mistress Sadler stiffens and bridles at the question. The
+Sadlers, whisper says, are Puritanical, whereas there are those who
+hold that John Shakespeare and his household, for all they are observant
+of church matters, have still a Catholic leaning. Fond of genial John
+Shakespeare as the Sadler household are, they shake their heads over
+some things, and the players are one of these.
+
+"Is it true they are coming?" repeats Mistress Snelling.
+
+"Ay," says Dad, "an' John Shakespeare the man to be thanked for it. Come
+Twelfth Day sennight, at the Guild Hall, Mistress Snelling."
+
+"Am I to see them, Dad?" whispers small Will, his head down and an arm
+tight about his father's neck as they go out the door.
+
+"Ay, you inch," promises Dad, stooping, too, as they go under the
+lintel beneath the penthouse roof, out into the frosty night. The stars
+are beginning to twinkle through the dusk, and the frozen path crunches
+underfoot. On each side, as they go up the street, the yards about the
+houses stand bare and gaunt with leafless stalks.
+
+"Yes," says Dad. "Ay, boy, you shall see the players from between Dad's
+knees."
+
+[Illustration: "'Ay, boy, you shall see the players'"]
+
+And like the old familiar stories we put on the shelf, gloating the
+while over the unproven treasures between the lids of the new,
+straightway Gammer's tales are forgot. And above the wind, as it whips
+scurries of snow around the corners, pipes Will's voice as they trudge
+home. But his pipings, his catechisings, now are concerned with this
+unknown world summed up in the magic term, "The Players."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+And Dad was as good as his word. First came Christmastide, with all
+Master Shakespeare's fellow burgesses to dine and the house agog with
+preparation. No wonder John Shakespeare had need of money to live up to
+his estate, for next came the Twelfth Night revels with the mummers and
+waits to be fed and boxed at the chief bailiff's door. And Mary
+Shakespeare said never a word, but did her husband's bidding cheerfully,
+even gayly. She had set herself to go his way with faith in his power to
+wrest success out of venture, and she was not one to take back her
+word.
+
+The week following, John Shakespeare carried his little son to see the
+players.
+
+"And was it not as I said?" Mother asked, when the two returned. "Did
+not the child fall asleep in the midst of it?"
+
+"Sleep!" laughed Dad, clapping Will, so fine in a little green velvet
+coat, upon the shoulder. "He sleep! You do not know the boy. His cheeks
+were like your best winter apples, an' his eyes, bless the rogue, are
+shining yet. An' trotting homeward at my heels, he has scarce had breath
+to run for talking of it. 'Tis in the blood, boy; your father before
+you loves a good play, an' the players, too."
+
+And Will, blowing upon his nails aching with the cold, stands squarely
+with his small legs apart, and looks up at Father. "An' I shall be a
+player, too, when I'm a man," says Willy Shakespeare. "I shall be a
+player and wear a dagger like Herod, an' walk about an' draw it--so----"
+and struts him up and down while his father laughs and claps hand to
+knee and roars again, until Mistress Shakespeare tells him he it is who
+spoils the child.
+
+[Illustration: "'An' I shall be a player, too' ... says Willy
+Shakespeare"]
+
+But for Will Shakespeare the curtain had risen on a new world, a world
+of giant, of hero, of story, a world of glitter, of pageant, of
+scarlet and purple and gold. And now henceforth the flagstoned floor
+about the chimney was a stage upon which Mother and Brother and Kitty,
+the maid, at little Will's bidding, with Will himself, played a part; a
+stage where Virtue, in other words Will with the parcel-gilt goblet
+upside down upon his head for crown, ever triumphed over Vice, in the
+person of dull Kitty, with her knitting on the stool; or where,
+according to the play, in turn, Noah or Abraham or Jesus Christ walked
+in Heaven, while Herod or Pilate, Cain or Judas, burned in yawning Hell.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+But as spring came, the garden offered a broader stage for life. The
+Shakespeare house was in Henley Street, and a fine house it was--too
+fine, some held, for a man in John Shakespeare's
+circumstances--two-storied, of timber and plaster, with dormer-windows
+and a penthouse over its door. And like its neighbors, the house stood
+with a yard at the side, and behind, a garden of flowers and fruit and
+herbs. And here the boy played the warm days through, his mother
+stepping now and then to the lattice window to see what he was about.
+And, gazing, often she saw him through tears, because of a yearning love
+over him, the more because of the two children dead before his coming.
+
+[Illustration: "His mother stepping now and then to the lattice window
+..."]
+
+And Will, seeing her there, would tear into the house and drag her by
+the hand forth into the sweet, rain-washed air.
+
+"An' see, Mother," he would tell her, as he haled her on to the sward
+beyond the arbor, "here it is, the story you told us yester-e'en. Here
+is the ring where they danced last night, the little folk, an' here is
+the glow-worm caught in the spider's web to give them light."
+
+But something had changed Mary Shakespeare's mood. John Shakespeare,
+chief bailiff and burgess of Stratford, was being sued for an old debt,
+and one which Mary Shakespeare had been allowed to think was paid.
+Thereupon came to light other outstanding debts of which she had not
+known which must be met. John Shakespeare, with irons in so many fires,
+seemed forever to have put money out, in ventures in leather, in wool,
+in corn, in timber, and to have drawn none in. And now he talked of a
+mortgage on the Asbies estate.
+
+"Never," Mary told herself, with a look at little Will, at toddling
+Gilbert at her feet, with a thought for the unborn child soon to add
+another inmate to the household--"not with my consent. When the time
+comes they are grown, what will be left for them?"
+
+She was bitter about the secrecy of those debts incurred unknown to her.
+And yet to set herself against John!
+
+Wandering with the children down the garden-path, idly she plucked a red
+rose and laid its cheek against a white one already in her hand. A
+kingdom divided against itself.
+
+She sighed, then became conscious of the boy pulling at her sleeve.
+
+"Tell us a story, Mother," he was begging, "a story with fighting an' a
+sword."
+
+"A story, Will, with fighting and a sword?" Never yet could she say the
+child nay. She held her roses from her and pondered while she gazed. And
+her heart was bitter.
+
+"There was an Arden, child, whose blood is in your veins, who fought and
+fell at Barnet, crying shrill and fierce, 'Edward my King, St. George
+and victory!' And the young Edward, near him as he fell, called to a
+knight to lay hand to his heart, for Edward knew and loved him well, and
+had received of him money for a long-forgotten debt which young Edward's
+father would not press. So Edward called to a knight to lay hand upon
+his heart. But he was dead. 'A soldier and a knight,' said he who was
+afterward the King, 'and more--an honest man.'"
+
+Then she pushed the boy aside and going swiftly to the house ran to her
+room; and face laid in her hands she wept. What had she said in the
+bitterness of her feeling? What--even to herself--had she said?
+
+Yet money must be had, she admitted that. But to encumber the estate!
+
+She shrank from her own people knowing; she had inherited more of her
+father's estate than her sisters, and there had been feeling, and her
+brothers-in-law, Lambert and Webb, would be but upheld in their
+prophecies about her husband's capacity to care for her property. She
+would not have them know. "Talk it over first with your father, John,"
+she told her husband, "or with your brother Henry. Let us not rush
+blindly into this thing. You had promised anyhow, you remember, to take
+Will out to the sheep-shearing."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+So the next morning John Shakespeare swung Will up on the horse before
+him, and the two rode away through the chill mistiness of the dawn, Will
+kissing his hand back to Mother in the doorway. Bound for Grandfather's
+at Snitterfield they were. So out through the town, past the scattering
+homesteads with their gardens and orchards, traveled Robin, the stout
+gray cob, small Will's chattering voice as high-piped as the bird-calls
+through the dawn; on into the open country of meadows and cultivated
+fields, the mists lifting rosy before the coming sun, through lanes
+with mossy banks, cobwebs spun between the blooming hedgerows heavy with
+dew, over the hills, past the straggling ash and hawthorn of the
+dingles. And everywhere the cold, moist scent of dawn, and peep and call
+of nest-birds.
+
+[Illustration: "Bound for Grandfather's at Snitterfield they were"]
+
+And so early has been their start and so good stout Robin's pace, that
+reaching the Snitterfield farm, they find everything in the hurly-burly
+of preparation for sheep-shearing. So, after a hearty kissing by the
+womenfolk, aunts and cousins, Will, with a cake hot from the baking
+thrust into his hand, goes out to the steading to look around. At
+Snitterfield there are poultry, and calves, too, in the byre, and
+little pigs in the pen back of the barn. Then comes breakfast in the
+kitchen with the farm-hands with their clattering hobnailed shoes and
+tarry hands, after which follows the business of sheep-washing, which
+Will views from the shady bank of the pool, and in his small heart he is
+quite torn because of the plaintive bleatings of the frightened sheep.
+But he swallows it as a man should. There is a pedler haunting the
+sheep-shearing festivals of the neighborhood. The women have sent for
+him to bring his pack to Snitterfield, and Dad bids Will choose a pair
+of scented gloves for Mother--and be quick; they must be off for
+Stratford before the noon.
+
+Dad seems short and curt. Grandfather, his broad, florid face upturned
+to Dad astride Robin, shakes his hoary head. "Doan' you do it, son
+John," says Grandfather; "'tis a-building on sand is any man who thinks
+to prosper on a mortgage. Henry and I'll advance you a bit. After which,
+cut down your living in Henley Street, son John, an' draw in the
+purse-strings."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+But baby years pass. When Will Shakespeare is six, he hears that he is
+to go to school. But not to nod over a hornbook at the petty school--not
+John Shakespeare's son! Little Will Shakespeare is entered at King's New
+College, which is a grammar-school.
+
+But, dear me! Dear me! It was a dreary place and irksome. At first small
+Will sat among his kind awed. When Schoolmaster breathed Will breathed,
+but when Schoolmaster glanced frowningly up from under overhanging brows
+like penthouse roofs, then the heart of Will Shakespeare quaked within
+him.
+
+But that was while he was six. At seven, when the elements of Latin
+grammar confronted him, Will had already found grammar-school an
+excellent place to plead aching tooth or heavy head to stay away from.
+At eight, a dreary traveling for him to cover did his "_Sententiae
+Pueriles_" prove, and idle paths more pleasing.
+
+At nine, he had learned to know many things not listed at
+grammar-school. For instance, he knew one Bardolph of the brazen, fiery
+nose, the tapster at the tavern. It was Bardolph who drew him out from
+under the knee and belaboring fists of one Thomas Chettle, another
+grammar-school boy, who had him down, behind High Cross in the Rother
+Market.
+
+[Illustration: "For instance, he knew one Bardolph ... the tapster at
+the tavern"]
+
+"In the devil's name," said Bardolph, setting him on his feet, "with
+your nose all gore an' never an eye you can open--what do you mean, boy,
+to be letting the like of _that_ come over you?" "That" meant Thomas
+Chettle, his fists squared, and as red as any fighting turkey, held off
+at arm's-length by Bardolph.
+
+"Come over me!" cries Will, with a rush at Thomas, head down, for all
+his being held off by Bardolph's other hand. "Who says he has come over
+me?"
+
+Now the matter stood thus. The day before, Will Shakespeare had
+followed a company of strolling mountebanks about town instead of going
+to school. And Thomas Chettle had told Schoolmaster, and he had told
+Father. When Will reached home the evening before, Dad was telling as
+much to Mother and blaming her for it. "An' Chettle's lad admits Will
+had ever rather see the swords an' hear a drum than look upon his
+lessons----"
+
+This Father was saying as Will sidled in. Will heard him say it. And so
+Thomas Chettle had to answer for it.
+
+"Come over me!" says Will to Bardolph who is holding him off and
+contemplating him, a battered wreck. "Come over me!" spitting blood and
+drawing a sleeve across his gory countenance, "I'd like to see him do
+it!" Will Shakespeare was not one to know when he was beaten.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+A year or two more, and school grew more irksome. Father fumed, and
+Mother sighed and drew Will against her knee whereon lay new little
+Sister Ann while little Sister Joan toddled about the floor. "Canst not
+seem to care for your books at all, son?" Mother asked, brushing Will's
+red brown hair out of his eyes. "Canst not see how it frets Father, who
+would have his oldest son a scholar and a gentleman?"
+
+He meant to try. But hadn't Dad himself let him off one day to tramp
+at heels after him and Uncle Henry in Arden Forest? Will Shakespeare at
+eleven is a sorry student.
+
+There comes a day when he is a big boy near thirteen years old. It is a
+time when the soft, hot winds of spring and the scent and the pulse of
+growing things get in the blood, and set one sick panting for the woods
+and the feel of the lush green underfoot and the sound of running water.
+Not that Will Shakespeare can put it into words--he only knows that when
+the smell of the warm, newly turned earth comes in at the schoolroom
+window and the hum of a wandering bee rises above the droning of the
+lesson, he lolls on the hacked and ink-stained desk and gazes out at
+the white clouds flecking the blue, and all the truant blood in his
+sturdy frame pulls against his promises.
+
+Then at length comes a day when the madness is strong upon him and he
+hides his books, his Cato's _Maxims_, or perchance his _Confabulationes
+Pueriles_, under the garden hedge, and skirting the town, makes his way
+along the river. And there, hidden among the willows and green alders
+and rustling sedge, he spends the morning; and when in the heat of the
+day the fish refuse to nibble, he takes his hunk of bread out of his
+pocket and lies on his back among the rushes, while lazy dreams flit
+across his consciousness as the light summer clouds rock mistily across
+the blue.
+
+[Illustration: "Hidden among the willows ... he spends the morning"]
+
+And, the wandering madness still upon him, in the afternoon he skirts
+about and tramps toward Shottery. It is no new thing to go to Shottery
+with or without Mother for a day at the Hathaways'. There always has
+been rebellion in the blood of Will Shakespeare, and there is a slender,
+wayward, grown-up somebody at Shottery who understands. Ann Hathaway has
+stayed often in Stratford with the Shakespeare household. Mother loves
+Ann; Father teases and twits her; the young men, swains and would-be
+sweethearts, swarm about her like bumblebees about the honeysuckle at
+the garden gate.
+
+And when she is there, Will himself seldom leaves her side. He has oft
+been a rebellious boy, whereat Mother has sighed and Father has sworn;
+but Ann, staying with them, and she alone, has laughed. She has
+understood.
+
+And there have been times when this tall brown-haired young person has
+seized his hand, as if she too had moments of rebellion, and the two
+have run away--away from the swains and the would-be sweethearts, the
+Latin grammar and the scoldings, to wander about the river banks and the
+lanes.
+
+[Illustration: "The two have run away ... to wander about the river
+banks."]
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+So this afternoon Will tramped off to Shottery. There was a
+consciousness in the back of his mind of wonderful leafiness and
+embowering, of vines and riotous bloom about Ann's home. He opened the
+wicket and trudged up the path, and peered in at the open door. Ann,
+within the doorway, saw him. She looked him in the eye, then up at the
+sun yet high in the sky, and laughed. And he knew she understood
+it--truancy.
+
+[Illustration: "He ... trudged up the path and peered in at the open
+door"]
+
+Perhaps she understood more than the fact, perhaps she understood the
+feeling. She threw her work aside, needle stuck therein, and clapped a
+wide straw hat upon her head and taking his hand dragged him down the
+path and out the gate and away--along the Evesham road.
+
+But she lectured him nevertheless, this red-cheeked boy with the full as
+yet undisciplined young mouth and the clear, warm hazel eyes.
+
+"You tell me that I, too, throw my work down and run away? Ay, Will,
+there's that hot blood within me that sweeps me out every now and then
+from within tame walls and from stupid people, and makes me know it is
+true, the old tale of some wild, gypsy blood brought home by a soldier
+Hathaway for wife. But there is this difference, if you please, sir;
+I throw down my work because I have fought my fight and conquered it, am
+mistress of what I will in my household craft. Think you that I love the
+molding of butter and the care of poultry, or to spin, to cut, to sew,
+because I do them and do them well? It is not the thing I love, Will--it
+is in the victory I find the joy. I would conquer them to feel my power.
+Conquer your book, Will, stride ahead of your class, then play your fill
+till they arrive abreast of you again. But a laggard, a stupid, or a
+middling! And, in faith, the last is worst."
+
+They walked along, boy and young woman, she musing, he looking up with
+young ardor into her face. "You--you are so beautiful, Ann," the boy
+blurted forth, "and--and--no one understands as you do."
+
+She laid a hand on his shoulder and turned her dark eyes upon him.
+Teasing eyes they could be and mocking, yet sweet, too. Ah, sweet and
+tender through their laughter!
+
+"Shall I tell you why I understand, Will Shakespeare, child?" Was she
+talking altogether to the boy, or above his head--aloud--as to herself?
+"I am a woman, Will, and at nineteen most such are already wife and
+mother, and I am still unwed. Shall I tell you why? We are but souls
+wandering and lonely in the dark, Will, other souls everywhere
+around, but scarce a groping hand that ever meets or touches our
+outstretched own. In all life we feel one such touch, perchance, or two.
+The rest we know no more than if they were not there. My father, great,
+simple, countryman's soul, I knew, Will, and Mary Shakespeare I know.
+Would she might learn she could do more with John through laughter, dear
+heart; but the right is ever stronger with Mary than the humor of the
+thing. My father and Mary I have known. And you, you I knew when in your
+rage you fell upon the maid, baby that you were at five, and beat her
+with your fists because she wantonly swept your treasures--a rose
+petal, a beetle wing, a pebble, a feather--into her kitchen fire. I knew
+you then, for so I had been beating at fate my life long. I knew you,
+Will, and, dear child, always since I have watched and understood. Rebel
+if you will; be free; but to be free, forget not, is to be conqueror
+over that within self first."
+
+Will caught her hand; he whispered; his voice burned hot with a child's
+jealousy.
+
+"'Tis said you are to wed Abraham Stripling, Ann, an' that the foreign
+doctor who wants to wed you, broke Abra'm's head with his pestle."
+
+Ann Hathaway laughed; her eyes were mocking now; she backed against
+the lichened trunk of a giant elm by the roadside, a young, beauteous
+thing, and looked at the boy in scorn. "I to marry Abraham Stripling!
+Child though you are, you know me better than that. Did I not just tell
+you I am free now--free? That I have held fast to my duty, and so come
+to where I might be free? Have held them at bay--family, cousins,
+elders, sweethearts--until now, the rest married and gone, and the tasks
+as they gave them up come to be mine, my mother needs me, and my life
+may be my own--and free. For who has come to wed me? Did I not just say
+I was--I am--free? A soul groping lonely in the dark? No man's hand has
+reached toward mine that I, a woman and a weakling, could not shake off.
+When the masterful hand, groping, seizes mine, I shall know it, and I--I
+will kiss it with my lips--and--and follow after."
+
+[Illustration: "'When the masterful hand, groping, seizes mine, I shall
+know it'"]
+
+She came back to him as one from an ecstasy. "And now, child, go on
+home. It is late. And hurry or Mary will be fretting. You have had your
+cake and eaten it. Now go pay for it. 'Discipline must be maintained,'
+says your Welsh schoolmaster. And sure he will flog you."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+But no one at home had missed him. The Henley Street house was full of
+hurry and confusion when he arrived. No one noticed him. The neighbors
+came in and out, Mistress Sadler and Mistress Snelling, and the foreign
+doctor who would like to wed Ann, or passed on up to a room above, where
+little sister Annie, named for Ann Hathaway, lay dying of a sudden
+croup. And all since morning, since Will stole away.
+
+He knows this thing called Life, this deep inbreathing, this joy of
+shout, of run, of leap, of vault. He knows--strong healthy young
+animal--he knows this thing. But the other--this strange thing called
+Death: the darkened room; Father with his head fallen on his breast
+standing at the lattice gazing out at nothing; Mother kneeling, one arm
+outstretched across the bed, her head fallen thereon, and Mistress
+Sadler trying to raise and lead her away; and this--this waxen whiteness
+framed in flaxen baby rings on the pillow--this little stiffening hand
+outside the linen cover?
+
+Will Shakespeare cries out. He has touched little sister Annie's hand
+and it is cold.
+
+[Illustration: "This strange thing called Death...."]
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+And after that, things went worse in the Shakespeare household. All of
+John Shakespeare's ventures were proving failures. Debt pressed on every
+side. There began talk again of a mortgage on the Asbies estate, and
+this time none could say nay.
+
+Dad went about with his head sunk on his breast, and at home sat staring
+in moody silence.
+
+[Illustration: "Dad ... sat staring in moody silence"]
+
+"Don't, Mary, don't," he would say to Mother, putting her hand on his
+shoulder. "Take the children away. Instead of the name their father
+would have left them, 'John Shakespeare, Gentleman,' they are to read
+it--what?"
+
+"John, John," said Mother, "is there no more then in it all--our love,
+our lives--than pride?"
+
+Pride! Will Shakespeare by now knew what it meant, and his heart went
+out to his father. He had felt the sting of this thing himself. It had
+been the year before. Dad had taken him behind him on his horse to
+Kenilworth, to see the masks and fireworks given by the Earl of
+Leicester in the Queen's honor. The gay London people come down with the
+court had sat in stands and galleries to witness the spectacle of the
+water pageant, breathing their perfumed breath down upon the country
+people crowding the ground below. And Will Shakespeare among these, at
+sight of the great Queen, had cheered with a lusty young throat and
+thrown his cap up with the rest. Will Shakespeare was the once chief
+bailiff's son. He was the son of Mary Arden of the Asbies. Though he
+never had thought about it one way or another, he had always known
+himself as good as the best.
+
+And so at Kenilworth, standing with the crowd and looking up at the
+jeweled folk in fine array casting their jokes and gibes down at the
+trammel, he had laughed, too, as honest as any. But when the time came
+for the water pageant, Dad had given him a lift up and a boost to the
+branches of a tree. And he had heard what she said, the lady upon whom
+he had from the first fixed his young gaze, the dark lady, with the
+jewels in her dusky hair, breathing lure and beauty and glamour. As he
+straddled the limb of his high perch that brought him so near her, he
+heard her cry out, her head thrown backward on her proud young throat:
+"Ah, the little beast, bringing the breath of the rabble up to our
+nostrils."
+
+And it was something like to what burned in young Will Shakespeare's
+soul then that Dad was feeling now. Will, big boy that he was, laid a
+hand on Dad's hand. Father looked up; their eyes met.
+
+Dad threw an arm about his shoulder and drew him close--father and son.
+
+Something passed from the older to the younger. The boy squared his
+shoulders. The man in Will Shakespeare was born.
+
+How best could he help Dad? So the lad pondered, meanwhile digging the
+sense piecemeal out of his _Ovid_ for the morrow's lesson.
+
+"_It is the mind that makes the man, and our
+strength--measure--vigor_"--any one of the three words would do--"_our
+measure is in our immortal souls_."
+
+Why--why is there truth in books? Had Ovid lived and been a man, a man
+who knew and fought it out himself?
+
+Will Shakespeare caught sight of a great and glorious kingdom he had not
+visioned before. The schoolmaster hitherto had talked in riddles.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+Yet a year after this Will Shakespeare, just awakened to a love of
+letters, threw his books down. Mother's brown hair, as she leaned over
+her new child, Edmund, showed lines of gray. Dad, the day's trade over,
+sat brooding at home, and scarce would hie him forth, the fear of
+process for debt hanging over him.
+
+Tall sturdy Will Shakespeare could buy up cattle and trade for hides as
+well as the butcher's son in Rother Market. Will Shakespeare threw down
+his books and went forth into the world--a man.
+
+[Illustration: "Tall, sturdy Will Shakespeare could buy up cattle ... as
+well as the butcher's son"]
+
+A man? A man, yes; once his stripling days of hot blood are over, days
+of rustic rout, of fight and wrestle, of deer-stealing, of wanderings
+with strolling players; a man, husband to Ann Hathaway, father of
+children, son of Mary Arden of the Asbies, Gentlewoman--of John
+Shakespeare, failure, who would be Gentleman; a man, this William
+Shakespeare, gone up to London to do a part in the world. In the world?
+This world wherein all is gain and nothing loss, does one but make it
+so; all is garnering; all is treasure; all, if so one deem it, is
+pageant, poetry, and drama; the rustic, the maid, the gammer, the
+tapster, the schoolboy, the master; the lubberfolk, the witch, the
+fairy, the elf, the goblin; the fat woman of Brentford, the man dwelling
+by the churchyard, Snelling, Sadler, Bardolph, Clowder, the old dog; the
+mummer, the wait, the revel, the cates and ale, the player strutting the
+stage as Herod; the sheep-shearing, the pedler, the glove; the white
+rose and the red; the Princes in the tower; St. George and victory;
+king, knight, soldier; the Avon sweetly flowing in its banks; the
+forest; the clouds rocking across the blue; stripling; the foreign
+doctor; queen, courtier, lady; love, life, death; hope, struggle,
+despair; pride, ambition, failure; vision, striving, achievement;
+wisdom, philosophy, contemplation; into the world where all is gain and
+nothing loss, does one make it so, went William Shakespeare of
+Stratford, to conquer.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Warwickshire Lad, by George Madden Martin
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WARWICKSHIRE LAD ***
+
+***** This file should be named 27187-8.txt or 27187-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/1/8/27187/
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Martin Pettit and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Kentuckiana Digital Library)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/27187-8.zip b/27187-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2bf3d2f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-8.zip
diff --git a/27187-h.zip b/27187-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6f71d3f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-h.zip
diff --git a/27187-h/27187-h.htm b/27187-h/27187-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cd0dc4b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-h/27187-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,1563 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Warwickshire Lad, by George Madden Martin.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+/*<![CDATA[  XML blockout */
+<!--
+    p {  margin-top: .75em;
+         text-align: justify;
+         margin-bottom: .75em;
+         }
+    h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {
+         text-align: center; /* all headings centered */
+         clear: both;
+         }
+    hr { width: 33%;
+	 margin-top: 2em;
+	 margin-bottom: 2em;
+         margin-left: auto;
+         margin-right: auto;
+         clear: both;
+       }
+
+    body{margin-left: 10%;
+         margin-right: 10%;
+        }
+
+    hr.smler { width: 10%; }
+
+    .pagenum  { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
+            /*  visibility: hidden;  */
+                position: absolute;
+                left: 92%;
+                font-size: smaller;
+                text-align: right;
+                text-indent: 0px;
+              } /* page numbers */
+
+    .center   {text-align: center;}
+    .smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
+
+    .tbrk	  {margin-bottom: 3.5em;}
+
+    /* index */
+
+    div.index ul li { padding-top: 1em ;text-align: center; }
+
+    div.index ul ul ul, div.index ul li ul li { padding: 0; text-align: left; }
+
+    div.index ul { list-style: none;  margin: 0; }
+
+    div.index ul, div.index ul ul ul li { display: inline; }
+
+    // -->
+    /* XML end  ]]>*/
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Warwickshire Lad, by George Madden Martin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Warwickshire Lad
+       The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare
+
+Author: George Madden Martin
+
+Release Date: November 7, 2008 [EBook #27187]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WARWICKSHIRE LAD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Martin Pettit and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Kentuckiana Digital Library)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h1>A WARWICKSHIRE LAD</h1>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="ill-002.jpg" id="ill-002.jpg"></a><img src="images/ill-002.jpg" width='550' height='650' alt="Birthplace of Shakespeare" /></div>
+
+<h4>Birthplace of Shakespeare</h4>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="center"><img src="images/ill-003.jpg" width='449' height='700' alt="A WARWICKSHIRE LAD
+ THE STORY OF THE BOYHOOD OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE by GEORGE MADDEN MARTIN Author of Selina, Emmy Lou, etc. D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
+ NEW YORK LONDON MDCCCCXVI" /></div>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1916, by</span></h4>
+
+<h3>D. APPLETON AND COMPANY</h3>
+
+<hr class="smler" />
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1903, by P. F. Collier &amp; Son, Inc</span></h4>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>Printed in the United States of America</h3>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class="index">
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#I">CHAPTER I.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#II">CHAPTER II.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#III">CHAPTER III.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#V">CHAPTER V.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#VI">CHAPTER VI.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#VII">CHAPTER VII.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#X">CHAPTER X.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#XI">CHAPTER XI.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#XII">CHAPTER XII.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS" id="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<div class="index">
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#ill-002.jpg">Birthplace of Shakespeare</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>Frontispiece</i></li>
+<li><a href="#ill-017.jpg">"Will clambered up on the settle to think it all over"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#ill-023.jpg">"Dad bends to tweak the ear of Will"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#ill-035.jpg">"'Ay, but those are brave words, Hammie,' says Gammer"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#ill-041.jpg">"'Save us! What's that!' cried Gammer"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#ill-047.jpg">"'Ay, boy, you shall see the players'"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#ill-055.jpg">"'An' I shall be a player, too,' ... says Willy Shakespeare"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#ill-059.jpg">"His mother stepping now and then to the lattice window"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#ill-069.jpg">"Bound for Grandfather's at Snitterfield they were"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#ill-075.jpg">"For instance he knew one Bardolph ... the tapster at the tavern"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#ill-081.jpg">"Hidden away among the willows ... he spends the morning"</a></li>
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span><a href="#ill-089.jpg">"The two have run away ... to wander about the river banks"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#ill-093.jpg">"He ... trudged up the path and peered in at the open door"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#ill-097.jpg">"'When the masterful hand, groping, seizes mine, I shall know it'"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#ill-103.jpg">"This strange thing called Death ..."</a></li>
+<li><a href="#ill-107.jpg">"Dad ... sat staring in moody silence"</a></li>
+<li><a href="#ill-115.jpg">"Tall, sturdy Will Shakespeare could buy up cattle ... as well as the butcher's son"</a></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h1>A WARWICKSHIRE LAD</h1>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2>
+
+<p>Little Will Shakespeare was going homeward through the dusk from Gammer
+Gurton's fireside. He had no timorous fears, not he. He would walk
+proudly and deliberately as becomes a man. Men are not afraid. Yet
+Gammer had told of strange happenings at her home. A magpie had flown
+screaming over the roof, the butter would not come in the churn, an' a
+strange cat had slipped out afore the maid at daybreak&mdash;a cat without a
+tail, Gammer said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Little Will quickened his pace.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p><p>Dusk falls early these December days, and Willy Shakespeare scurrying
+along the street is only five, and although men are not afraid yet&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>So presently when he pulls up he is panting, and he beats against the
+stubborn street door with little red fists, and falls in at its sudden
+opening, breathless.</p>
+
+<p>But Mother's finger is on her lips as she looks up from her low chair in
+the living-room, for the whole world in this Henley Street household
+stands still and holds its breath when Baby Brother sleeps. Brought up
+short, Will tiptoes over to the chimney corner. Why will toes stump when
+one most wants to move noiselessly? He is panting still too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> with his
+hurrying and with all he has to tell.</p>
+
+<p>"She says," begins Will before he has even reached Mother's side and his
+whisper is awesome, "Gammer says that Margery is more than any ailin',
+she is."</p>
+
+<p>Now chimney corners may be wide and generous and cheerful with their
+blazing log, but they open into rooms which as night comes on grow big
+and shadowy, with flickers up against the raftered darkness of the
+ceilings. Little Will Shakespeare presses closer to his mother's side.
+"She says, Gammer does, she says that Margery is witched."</p>
+
+<p>Now Margery was the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>serving-maid at the house of Gammer Gurton's
+son-in-law, Goodman Sadler, with whom Gammer lived.</p>
+
+<p>Mother at this speaks sharply. She is outdone about it. "A pretty tale
+for a child to be hearing," she says. "It is but a fearbabe. I wonder at
+Gammer, I do."</p>
+
+<p>And turning aside from the cradle which she has been rocking, she lifts
+small Will to her lap, and he stretching frosty fingers and toes all
+tingling to the heat, snuggles close. He is glad Mother speaks sharply
+and is outdone about it; somehow this makes it more reassuring.</p>
+
+<p>"Witched!" says Mother. "Tell me! 'Tis lingering in the lane after dark
+with that gawky country <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>sweetheart has given her the fever that her
+betters have been having since the Avon come over bank. A wet autumn is
+more to be feared than Gammer's witches. Poor luck it is the lubberfolk
+aren't after the girl in truth; a slattern maid she is, her hearth
+unswept and house-door always open and the cream ever a-chill. The
+brownie-folk, I promise you, Will, pinch black and blue for less."</p>
+
+<p>Mother is laughing at him. Little Will recognizes that and smiles back,
+but half-heartedly, for he is not through confessing.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like to wear it down my back," says he. "It tickles."</p>
+
+<p>"Wear what?" asks Mother, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> even as she speaks must partly divine,
+for a finger and thumb go searching down between his little nape and the
+collar of his doublet, and in a moment they draw it forth, a bit of
+witches' elm.</p>
+
+<p>"Gammer, she sewed it there," says Will.</p>
+
+<p>A little frown was gathering between Mother's brows, which was making
+small Willy Shakespeare feel still more reassured and comfortable, when
+suddenly she gave a cry and start, half rising, so that he, startled
+too, slid perforce to the floor, clinging to her gown.</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon Mother sank back in her chair, her hand pressed against the
+kerchief crossed over her bosom,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> and laughed shamefacedly, for it had
+been nothing more terrible that had startled her than big, purring
+Graymalkin, the cat, insinuating his sleek back under her hand as he
+arched and rubbed about her chair. And so, sitting down shamefacedly,
+she gathered Will up again and called him goose and little chuck, as if
+he and not she had been the one to jump and cry out.</p>
+
+<p>But he laughed boisterously. The joke was on Mother, and so he laughed
+loud, as becomes a man when the joke is on the women folk.</p>
+
+<p>"Ho!" said Will Shakespeare.</p>
+
+<p>"Sh-h-h!" said Mother.</p>
+
+<p>But the mischief was done and Will must get out of her lap, for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>little
+Brother Gilbert, awakened, was whimpering in the cradle.</p>
+
+<p>Will clambered up on the settle to think it all over. Mother had started
+and cried out. So after all was Mother afraid too? Of&mdash;of things? Had
+she said it all to reassure him? The magpie had flown screaming over the
+house for he had seen it. So what if the rest were true&mdash;that the cat,
+the cat without the tail stealing out at daybreak, had been&mdash;what Gammer
+said&mdash;a witch, weaving overnight her spell about poor Margery? He knew
+how it would have been; he had heard whispers about these things before;
+the dying embers on the hearth, the little waxen figure laid to melt
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>thereon, the witch-woman weaving the charm about&mdash;now swifter, faster
+circling&mdash;with passes of hands above.</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="ill-017.jpg" id="ill-017.jpg"></a><img src="images/ill-017.jpg" width='550' height='650' alt="Will clambered up on the settle to think it all over" /></div>
+
+<h4>"Will clambered up on the settle to think it all over"</h4>
+
+<p>Little Will Shakespeare, terrified at his own imaginings, clutched
+himself, afraid to move. Is that only a shadow yonder in the corner, now
+creeping toward him, now stealing away?</p>
+
+<p>What is that at the pane? Is it the frozen twigs of the old pippin, or
+the tapping fingers of some night creature without?</p>
+
+<p>Will Shakespeare falls off the settle in his haste and scuttles to
+Mother. Once there, he hopes she does not guess why he hangs to her so
+closely. But he is glad, nevertheless, when the candles are brought in.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2>
+
+<p>But these things all vanish from mind when the outer door opens and Dad
+comes in stamping and blowing. Dad is late, but men are always late. It
+is expected that they should come in late and laugh at the women who
+chide and remind them that candles cost and that it makes the maid testy
+to be kept waiting.</p>
+
+<p>Men should laugh loud like Dad, and catch Mother under the chin and kiss
+her once, twice, three times. Will means to be just such a man when he
+grows up, and to fill the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> room with his big shoulders and bigger laugh
+as Dad is doing now while tossing Brother Gilbert. He, little Will, he
+will never be one like Goodman Sadler, Gammer's son-in-law, with a lean,
+long nose, and a body slipping flatlike through a crack of the door.</p>
+
+<p>And here Dad bends to tweak the ear of Will who would laugh noisily if
+it hurt twice as badly. It makes him feel himself a man to wink back
+those tears of pain.</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="ill-023.jpg" id="ill-023.jpg"></a><img src="images/ill-023.jpg" width='530' height='680' alt="Dad bends to tweak the ear of Will" /></div>
+
+<h4>"Dad bends to tweak the ear of Will"</h4>
+
+<p>"A busy afternoon this, Mary," says Dad. "Old Timothy Quinn from out
+Welcombe way was in haggling over a dozen hides to sell. Then Burbage
+was over from Coventry about that matter of the players,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> and kept me so
+that I had to send Bardolph out with your Cousin Lambert to Wilmcote to
+mark that timber for felling."</p>
+
+<p>Now for all Master Shakespeare's big, off-hand mentioning thus of facts,
+this was meant for a confession.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Shakespeare had risen to take the crowing Gilbert, handed back to
+her by her husband, and with the other hand was encircling Will, holding
+to her skirt. She was tall, with both grace and state, and there was a
+chestnut warmth in the hair about her clear, white brow and nape, and in
+the brown of her serene and tender eyes. These eyes smiled at John
+Shakespeare with a hint of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> upbraiding, and she shook her head at him
+with playful reproach.</p>
+
+<p>Little Will saw her do it. He knew too how to interpret such a look. Had
+Father been naughty?</p>
+
+<p>"You are not selling more of the timber, John?" asked Mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Say the word, Mistress Mary Arden of the Asbies," says Father grandly,
+"and I stop the bargain with your Cousin Lambert where it stands. 'Tis
+yours to say about your own. Though nothing spend, how shall a man live
+up to his state? But it shall be as you say, although 'tis for you and
+the boy. He is the chief bailiff's son&mdash;his Dad can feel he has given
+him that, but would have him more. I have never forgot your <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>people felt
+their Mary stepped down to wed a Shakespeare. I have applied to the
+Herald's College for a grant of arms. The Shakespeares are as good as
+any who fought to place the crown on Henry VII's head. But it shall be
+stopped. The land and the timber on it is Mistress Mary Shakespeare's,
+not mine."</p>
+
+<p>But Mary, pushing little Will aside clung to her husband's arm, and the
+warmth in her tender eyes deepened to something akin to yearning as they
+looked up at him. With the man of her choice, and her children&mdash;with
+these Mary Shakespeare's life and heart were full. There was no room for
+ambition for she was content. Had life been any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> sweeter to her as Mary
+Arden of the Asbies, daughter of a gentleman, than as Mary Shakespeare,
+wife of a dealer in leathers? Nay, nor as sweet!</p>
+
+<p>But she could not make her husband see it so. Yet&mdash;and she looked up at
+him with a sudden passion of love in that gaze&mdash;it was this big,
+sanguine, restless, masterful spirit in him that had won her. From the
+narrow, restricted conditions of a provincial gentlewoman's life, she
+had looked out into a bigger world for living, through the eyes of this
+masterful yeoman, his heart big with desire to conquer and ambition to
+achieve. Was her faith in his capacity to know and seize the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>essential
+in his venturing, less now than then? Never, never&mdash;not that, not that!</p>
+
+<p>"Do as you will about it, John," begs Mary, her cheek against his arm,
+"only&mdash;is it kind to say the land is mine? We talked that all out once,
+goodman mine. Only this one thing more, John, for I would not seem ever
+to carp and faultfind&mdash;you know that, don't you?&mdash;but that Bardolph&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He's a low tavern fellow, I allow, Mary&mdash;of course, of course. I know
+all you would say&mdash;his nose afire and his ruffian black poll ever being
+broken in some brawl, but he's a good enough fellow behind it, and
+useful to me. You needs must keep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> on terms with high and low, Mary, to
+hold the good will of all. That's why I am anxious to arrange this
+matter with Burbage to have the players here, if the Guild will
+consent&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Players?" says Will, listening at his father's side. "What are
+players?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tut," says Dad, "not know the players! They are actors, Will&mdash;players.
+Hear the boy&mdash;not know the players!"</p>
+
+<p>But Mother strokes his hair. "When I told you a tale, sweet, this very
+morn, you went to playing it after. I was the Queen-mother, you said,
+outside the prison walls, and you and Brother were the little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> Princes
+in the cruel tower, and thus you played. You stood at the casement, two
+gentle babes, cradling each other in your arms, and called to me below.
+So with the players, child, they play the story out instead of telling
+it. But now, these my babes to bed."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2>
+
+<p>The next day things seem different. One no longer feels afraid, while
+the memory of Gammer's tales is alluring. Will remembers, too, that
+greens from the forest were ordered sent to the Sadlers for the making
+of garlands for the Town Hall revels. Small Willy Shakespeare slipped
+off from home that afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>Reaching the Sadlers, he stopped on the threshold abashed. The
+living-room was filled with neighbors come to help&mdash;young men, girls,
+with here and there some older<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> folk&mdash;all gathered about a pile of
+greens in the center of the floor, from which each was choosing his bit,
+while garlands and wreaths half done lay about in the rushes.</p>
+
+<p>But, though his baby soul dreams it not, there is ever a place and
+welcome for a chief bailiff's little son. They turn at his entrance, and
+Mistress Sadler bids him come in; her cousin at her elbow praises his
+eyes&mdash;shade of hazel nut, she calls them. And Gammer, peering to find
+the cause of interruption and spying him, pushes a stool out from under
+her feet and curving a yellow, shaking finger, beckons and points him to
+it. But while doing so, she does not stay her quavering and garrulous
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>recital. He has come, then, in time to hear the tale?</p>
+
+<p>"An' the man, by name of Gosling," Gammer is saying, "dwelt by a
+churchyard&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Will Shakespeare slips to his place on the stool.</p>
+
+<p>Hamnet is next to him, Hamnet Sadler who is eight, almost a man grown.
+Hamnet's cheeks are red and hard and shining, and he stands square and
+looks you in the face. Hamnet has a fist, too, and has thrashed the
+butcher's son down by the Rother Market, though the butcher's son is
+nine.</p>
+
+<p>Here Hamnet nudges Will. What is this he is saying? About Gammer, his
+very own grandame?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p><p>"Ben't no witches," mutters Hamnet to Will. "Schoolmaster says so. Says
+the like of Gammer's talk is naught but women's tales."</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon Gammer pauses and turns her puckered eyes down upon the two
+urchins at her knee. Has she heard what her grandson said? Will
+Shakespeare feels as guilty as if he had been the one to say it.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, but those are brave words, Hammie," says Gammer, and she wags her
+sharp chin knowingly; "brave words. An' you shall take the bowl yonder
+and fetch a round o' pippins from the cellar for us here. Candle? La,
+you know the way full well. The dusk is hardly fell. Nay, you're not
+plucking Judith's sleeve,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> Hammie? You are not a lad to want a sister
+at elbow? Go, now! What say you, Mistress Snelling? The tale? An' Willy
+Shakespeare here, all eyes and open mouth for it, too? Ay, but he's the
+rascalliest sweet younker for the tale. An' where were we? Ay, the fat
+woman of Brentford had just come to Goodman Gosling's house&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="ill-035.jpg" id="ill-035.jpg"></a><img src="images/ill-035.jpg" width='507' height='700' alt="'Ay, but those are brave words, Hammie,' says Gammer" /></div>
+
+<h4>"'Ay, but those are brave words, Hammie,' says Gammer"</h4>
+
+<p>"Come back an' shut the door behind you, Hammie; there's more than a nip
+to these December gales. I' faith, how the lad drumbles, a clumsy
+lob&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"As you say, the fat woman of Brentford, one Gossip Pratt by name, an' a
+two yards round by common say she was, an' that beard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> showing on her
+chin under her thrummed hat an' muffler, a man with score o' years to
+beard need not be ashamed of&mdash;this same woman comes to Goodman
+Gosling's, him as dwelt by the churchyard. But he, avised about her
+dealings, sent her speedily away, most like not choosing his words, him
+being of a jandered, queazy stomach, an' something given to tongue. For
+an hour following her going, an' you'll believe me&mdash;an' I had it from
+his wife's cousin a-come ten year this simple time when I visited my
+sister's daughter Nan at Brentford&mdash;his hogs fell sick an' died to the
+number o' twenty an' he helpless afore their bloating and swelling.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p><p>"Nor did it end there, for his children falling ill soon after&mdash;a
+pretty dears they were, I mind them, a-hanging of their heads to see a
+stranger, an' a finger in mouth&mdash;they falling sick, the woman of
+Brentford come again, an' this time all afraid to say her nay. An'
+layin' off her cloak, she took the youngest from the mother's breast,
+dandling an' chucking it like an honest woman, whereupon it fell
+a-sudden in a swoon.</p>
+
+<p>"An' Goodwife Gosling seizing it, an' mindful of her being a
+witch-woman, calling on the name of God, straightway there fell out of
+the child's blanket a great toad which exploded in the fire like any
+gunpowder, an' the room that full o'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> smoke an' brimstone as none
+could&mdash;Save us! What's that!" cried Gammer.</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="ill-041.jpg" id="ill-041.jpg"></a><img src="images/ill-041.jpg" width='700' height='414' alt="'Save us! What's that!' cried Gammer" /></div>
+
+<h4>"'Save us! What's that!' cried Gammer"</h4>
+
+<p>What, indeed! That cry&mdash;this rush along the passageway! Will
+Shakespeare, with heart a-still, clutches at Gammer's gown as there
+follows a crash against the oaken panels.</p>
+
+<p>But as the door bursts open, it is Hamnet, head-first, sprawling into
+the room, the pippins preceding him over the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"It were ahind me, breathin' hoarse, on the cellar stairs," whimpers
+Hamnet, gathering himself to his knees, his fist burrowing into his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Nor does he know why at this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>moment the laughter rises loud. For
+Hamnet cannot see what the others can&mdash;the white nose of Clowder, the
+asthmatic old house-dog, coming inquiringly over his shoulder, her tail
+wagging inquiry as to the wherefore of the uproar.</p>
+
+<p>But somehow, little Will Shakespeare did not laugh. Instead his cheeks
+and his ears burned hot for Hamnet. Judith did not laugh either. Judith
+was ten, and Hamnet's sister, and her black eyes flashed around on them
+all for laughing, and her cheeks were hot. Judith flung a look at
+Gammer, too, her own Gammer. And Will's heart warmed to Judith, and he
+went too when she sprang to help Hamnet.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p><p>Hamnet's face was scarlet yet as he fumbled around among the rushes and
+the greens for the pippins, and this done he retired hastily to his
+stool. But three-legged stools are uncertain, and he sat him heavily
+down on the rushes instead.</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon they laughed the louder, the girls and the women too&mdash;laughed
+until the candle flames flickered and flared, and Gammer, choking over
+her bowl, for cates and cider were being handed round, spilled the drink
+all down her withered neck and over her gown, wheezing and gasping until
+her daughter snatched the bowl from her and shook the breath back into
+her with no gentle hand.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Will plucked Hamnet now blubbering on his stool, by the
+doublet. But Hamnet, turned sullen, shook him off. Perhaps he did not
+know that Will and Judith had not laughed. But since Hamnet saw fit to
+shake him off, Will was glad that just then, with a rush of cold air and
+a sprinkling of snow upon his short coat, Dad came in. His face was
+ruddy, and as he glanced laughingly around upon them all, he drew deep
+breath of the spicy evergreens, so that he filled his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> doublet and
+close-throated jerkin to their full.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-even to you, neighbors," says Dad. "An' is it great wonder the boy
+will run away to hie him here? The rogue kens a good thing equal to his
+elders. But come, boy; your mother is even now sure you have wandered to
+the river."</p>
+
+<p>And Dad, with a mighty swing, shoulders Will, steadying him with a palm
+under both small feet; then pauses at Mistress Snelling's questioning.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it true," she inquires, "that the players are coming?"</p>
+
+<p>Sandy-hued Mistress Sadler stiffens and bridles at the question. The
+Sadlers, whisper says, are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>Puritanical, whereas there are those who
+hold that John Shakespeare and his household, for all they are observant
+of church matters, have still a Catholic leaning. Fond of genial John
+Shakespeare as the Sadler household are, they shake their heads over
+some things, and the players are one of these.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it true they are coming?" repeats Mistress Snelling.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay," says Dad, "an' John Shakespeare the man to be thanked for it. Come
+Twelfth Day sennight, at the Guild Hall, Mistress Snelling."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I to see them, Dad?" whispers small Will, his head down and an arm
+tight about his father's neck as they go out the door.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p><p>"Ay, you inch," promises Dad, stooping, too, as they go under the
+lintel beneath the penthouse roof, out into the frosty night. The stars
+are beginning to twinkle through the dusk, and the frozen path crunches
+underfoot. On each side, as they go up the street, the yards about the
+houses stand bare and gaunt with leafless stalks.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says Dad. "Ay, boy, you shall see the players from between Dad's
+knees."</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="ill-047.jpg" id="ill-047.jpg"></a><img src="images/ill-047.jpg" width='515' height='700' alt="'Ay, boy, you shall see the players'" /></div>
+
+<h4>"'Ay, boy, you shall see the players'"</h4>
+
+<p>And like the old familiar stories we put on the shelf, gloating the
+while over the unproven treasures between the lids of the new,
+straightway Gammer's tales are forgot. And above the wind, as it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> whips
+scurries of snow around the corners, pipes Will's voice as they trudge
+home. But his pipings, his catechisings, now are concerned with this
+unknown world summed up in the magic term, "The Players."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2>
+
+<p>And Dad was as good as his word. First came Christmastide, with all
+Master Shakespeare's fellow burgesses to dine and the house agog with
+preparation. No wonder John Shakespeare had need of money to live up to
+his estate, for next came the Twelfth Night revels with the mummers and
+waits to be fed and boxed at the chief bailiff's door. And Mary
+Shakespeare said never a word, but did her husband's bidding cheerfully,
+even gayly. She had set herself to go his way with faith in his power to
+wrest success<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> out of venture, and she was not one to take back her
+word.</p>
+
+<p>The week following, John Shakespeare carried his little son to see the
+players.</p>
+
+<p>"And was it not as I said?" Mother asked, when the two returned. "Did
+not the child fall asleep in the midst of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sleep!" laughed Dad, clapping Will, so fine in a little green velvet
+coat, upon the shoulder. "He sleep! You do not know the boy. His cheeks
+were like your best winter apples, an' his eyes, bless the rogue, are
+shining yet. An' trotting homeward at my heels, he has scarce had breath
+to run for talking of it. 'Tis in the blood, boy; your father<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> before
+you loves a good play, an' the players, too."</p>
+
+<p>And Will, blowing upon his nails aching with the cold, stands squarely
+with his small legs apart, and looks up at Father. "An' I shall be a
+player, too, when I'm a man," says Willy Shakespeare. "I shall be a
+player and wear a dagger like Herod, an' walk about an' draw it&mdash;so&mdash;&mdash;"
+and struts him up and down while his father laughs and claps hand to
+knee and roars again, until Mistress Shakespeare tells him he it is who
+spoils the child.</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="ill-055.jpg" id="ill-055.jpg"></a><img src="images/ill-055.jpg" width='560' height='660' alt="'An' I shall be a player, too' ... says Willy Shakespeare" /></div>
+
+<h4>"'An' I shall be a player, too' ... says Willy Shakespeare"</h4>
+
+<p>But for Will Shakespeare the curtain had risen on a new world, a world
+of giant, of hero, of story, a world of glitter, of pageant, of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>scarlet and purple and gold. And now henceforth the flagstoned floor
+about the chimney was a stage upon which Mother and Brother and Kitty,
+the maid, at little Will's bidding, with Will himself, played a part; a
+stage where Virtue, in other words Will with the parcel-gilt goblet
+upside down upon his head for crown, ever triumphed over Vice, in the
+person of dull Kitty, with her knitting on the stool; or where,
+according to the play, in turn, Noah or Abraham or Jesus Christ walked
+in Heaven, while Herod or Pilate, Cain or Judas, burned in yawning Hell.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2>
+
+<p>But as spring came, the garden offered a broader stage for life. The
+Shakespeare house was in Henley Street, and a fine house it was&mdash;too
+fine, some held, for a man in John Shakespeare's
+circumstances&mdash;two-storied, of timber and plaster, with dormer-windows
+and a penthouse over its door. And like its neighbors, the house stood
+with a yard at the side, and behind, a garden of flowers and fruit and
+herbs. And here the boy played the warm days through, his mother
+stepping now and then to the lattice window to see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> what he was about.
+And, gazing, often she saw him through tears, because of a yearning love
+over him, the more because of the two children dead before his coming.</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="ill-059.jpg" id="ill-059.jpg"></a><img src="images/ill-059.jpg" width='478' height='700' alt="His mother stepping now and then to the lattice window" /></div>
+
+<h4>"His mother stepping now and then to the lattice window ..."</h4>
+
+<p>And Will, seeing her there, would tear into the house and drag her by
+the hand forth into the sweet, rain-washed air.</p>
+
+<p>"An' see, Mother," he would tell her, as he haled her on to the sward
+beyond the arbor, "here it is, the story you told us yester-e'en. Here
+is the ring where they danced last night, the little folk, an' here is
+the glow-worm caught in the spider's web to give them light."</p>
+
+<p>But something had changed Mary Shakespeare's mood. John <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>Shakespeare,
+chief bailiff and burgess of Stratford, was being sued for an old debt,
+and one which Mary Shakespeare had been allowed to think was paid.
+Thereupon came to light other outstanding debts of which she had not
+known which must be met. John Shakespeare, with irons in so many fires,
+seemed forever to have put money out, in ventures in leather, in wool,
+in corn, in timber, and to have drawn none in. And now he talked of a
+mortgage on the Asbies estate.</p>
+
+<p>"Never," Mary told herself, with a look at little Will, at toddling
+Gilbert at her feet, with a thought for the unborn child soon to add
+another inmate to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>household&mdash;"not with my consent. When the time
+comes they are grown, what will be left for them?"</p>
+
+<p>She was bitter about the secrecy of those debts incurred unknown to her.
+And yet to set herself against John!</p>
+
+<p>Wandering with the children down the garden-path, idly she plucked a red
+rose and laid its cheek against a white one already in her hand. A
+kingdom divided against itself.</p>
+
+<p>She sighed, then became conscious of the boy pulling at her sleeve.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell us a story, Mother," he was begging, "a story with fighting an' a
+sword."</p>
+
+<p>"A story, Will, with fighting and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> a sword?" Never yet could she say the
+child nay. She held her roses from her and pondered while she gazed. And
+her heart was bitter.</p>
+
+<p>"There was an Arden, child, whose blood is in your veins, who fought and
+fell at Barnet, crying shrill and fierce, 'Edward my King, St. George
+and victory!' And the young Edward, near him as he fell, called to a
+knight to lay hand to his heart, for Edward knew and loved him well, and
+had received of him money for a long-forgotten debt which young Edward's
+father would not press. So Edward called to a knight to lay hand upon
+his heart. But he was dead. 'A soldier and a knight,' said he who was
+afterward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> the King, 'and more&mdash;an honest man.'"</p>
+
+<p>Then she pushed the boy aside and going swiftly to the house ran to her
+room; and face laid in her hands she wept. What had she said in the
+bitterness of her feeling? What&mdash;even to herself&mdash;had she said?</p>
+
+<p>Yet money must be had, she admitted that. But to encumber the estate!</p>
+
+<p>She shrank from her own people knowing; she had inherited more of her
+father's estate than her sisters, and there had been feeling, and her
+brothers-in-law, Lambert and Webb, would be but upheld in their
+prophecies about her husband's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>capacity to care for her property. She
+would not have them know. "Talk it over first with your father, John,"
+she told her husband, "or with your brother Henry. Let us not rush
+blindly into this thing. You had promised anyhow, you remember, to take
+Will out to the sheep-shearing."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2>
+
+<p>So the next morning John Shakespeare swung Will up on the horse before
+him, and the two rode away through the chill mistiness of the dawn, Will
+kissing his hand back to Mother in the doorway. Bound for Grandfather's
+at Snitterfield they were. So out through the town, past the scattering
+homesteads with their gardens and orchards, traveled Robin, the stout
+gray cob, small Will's chattering voice as high-piped as the bird-calls
+through the dawn; on into the open country of meadows and cultivated
+fields, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> mists lifting rosy before the coming sun, through lanes
+with mossy banks, cobwebs spun between the blooming hedgerows heavy with
+dew, over the hills, past the straggling ash and hawthorn of the
+dingles. And everywhere the cold, moist scent of dawn, and peep and call
+of nest-birds.</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="ill-069.jpg" id="ill-069.jpg"></a><img src="images/ill-069.jpg" width='496' height='700' alt="Bound for Grandfather's at Snitterfield they were" /></div>
+
+<h4>"Bound for Grandfather's at Snitterfield they were"</h4>
+
+<p>And so early has been their start and so good stout Robin's pace, that
+reaching the Snitterfield farm, they find everything in the hurly-burly
+of preparation for sheep-shearing. So, after a hearty kissing by the
+womenfolk, aunts and cousins, Will, with a cake hot from the baking
+thrust into his hand, goes out to the steading to look around. At
+Snitterfield there are poultry, and calves, too, in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> byre, and
+little pigs in the pen back of the barn. Then comes breakfast in the
+kitchen with the farm-hands with their clattering hobnailed shoes and
+tarry hands, after which follows the business of sheep-washing, which
+Will views from the shady bank of the pool, and in his small heart he is
+quite torn because of the plaintive bleatings of the frightened sheep.
+But he swallows it as a man should. There is a pedler haunting the
+sheep-shearing festivals of the neighborhood. The women have sent for
+him to bring his pack to Snitterfield, and Dad bids Will choose a pair
+of scented gloves for Mother&mdash;and be quick; they must be off for
+Stratford before the noon.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p><p>Dad seems short and curt. Grandfather, his broad, florid face upturned
+to Dad astride Robin, shakes his hoary head. "Doan' you do it, son
+John," says Grandfather; "'tis a-building on sand is any man who thinks
+to prosper on a mortgage. Henry and I'll advance you a bit. After which,
+cut down your living in Henley Street, son John, an' draw in the
+purse-strings."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2>
+
+<p>But baby years pass. When Will Shakespeare is six, he hears that he is
+to go to school. But not to nod over a hornbook at the petty school&mdash;not
+John Shakespeare's son! Little Will Shakespeare is entered at King's New
+College, which is a grammar-school.</p>
+
+<p>But, dear me! Dear me! It was a dreary place and irksome. At first small
+Will sat among his kind awed. When Schoolmaster breathed Will breathed,
+but when Schoolmaster glanced frowningly up from under overhanging brows
+like <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>penthouse roofs, then the heart of Will Shakespeare quaked within
+him.</p>
+
+<p>But that was while he was six. At seven, when the elements of Latin
+grammar confronted him, Will had already found grammar-school an
+excellent place to plead aching tooth or heavy head to stay away from.
+At eight, a dreary traveling for him to cover did his "<i>Sententiae
+Pueriles</i>" prove, and idle paths more pleasing.</p>
+
+<p>At nine, he had learned to know many things not listed at
+grammar-school. For instance, he knew one Bardolph of the brazen, fiery
+nose, the tapster at the tavern. It was Bardolph who drew him out from
+under the knee and belaboring fists<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> of one Thomas Chettle, another
+grammar-school boy, who had him down, behind High Cross in the Rother
+Market.</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="ill-075.jpg" id="ill-075.jpg"></a><img src="images/ill-075.jpg" width='532' height='700' alt="For instance, he knew one Bardolph ... the tapster at the tavern" /></div>
+
+<h4>"For instance, he knew one Bardolph ... the tapster at the tavern"</h4>
+
+<p>"In the devil's name," said Bardolph, setting him on his feet, "with
+your nose all gore an' never an eye you can open&mdash;what do you mean, boy,
+to be letting the like of <i>that</i> come over you?" "That" meant Thomas
+Chettle, his fists squared, and as red as any fighting turkey, held off
+at arm's-length by Bardolph.</p>
+
+<p>"Come over me!" cries Will, with a rush at Thomas, head down, for all
+his being held off by Bardolph's other hand. "Who says he has come over
+me?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span></p><p>Now the matter stood thus. The day before, Will Shakespeare had
+followed a company of strolling mountebanks about town instead of going
+to school. And Thomas Chettle had told Schoolmaster, and he had told
+Father. When Will reached home the evening before, Dad was telling as
+much to Mother and blaming her for it. "An' Chettle's lad admits Will
+had ever rather see the swords an' hear a drum than look upon his
+lessons&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>This Father was saying as Will sidled in. Will heard him say it. And so
+Thomas Chettle had to answer for it.</p>
+
+<p>"Come over me!" says Will to Bardolph who is holding him off<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> and
+contemplating him, a battered wreck. "Come over me!" spitting blood and
+drawing a sleeve across his gory countenance, "I'd like to see him do
+it!" Will Shakespeare was not one to know when he was beaten.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h2>
+
+<p>A year or two more, and school grew more irksome. Father fumed, and
+Mother sighed and drew Will against her knee whereon lay new little
+Sister Ann while little Sister Joan toddled about the floor. "Canst not
+seem to care for your books at all, son?" Mother asked, brushing Will's
+red brown hair out of his eyes. "Canst not see how it frets Father, who
+would have his oldest son a scholar and a gentleman?"</p>
+
+<p>He meant to try. But hadn't Dad himself let him off one day to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> tramp
+at heels after him and Uncle Henry in Arden Forest? Will Shakespeare at
+eleven is a sorry student.</p>
+
+<p>There comes a day when he is a big boy near thirteen years old. It is a
+time when the soft, hot winds of spring and the scent and the pulse of
+growing things get in the blood, and set one sick panting for the woods
+and the feel of the lush green underfoot and the sound of running water.
+Not that Will Shakespeare can put it into words&mdash;he only knows that when
+the smell of the warm, newly turned earth comes in at the schoolroom
+window and the hum of a wandering bee rises above the droning of the
+lesson, he lolls on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> hacked and ink-stained desk and gazes out at
+the white clouds flecking the blue, and all the truant blood in his
+sturdy frame pulls against his promises.</p>
+
+<p>Then at length comes a day when the madness is strong upon him and he
+hides his books, his Cato's <i>Maxims</i>, or perchance his <i>Confabulationes
+Pueriles</i>, under the garden hedge, and skirting the town, makes his way
+along the river. And there, hidden among the willows and green alders
+and rustling sedge, he spends the morning; and when in the heat of the
+day the fish refuse to nibble, he takes his hunk of bread out of his
+pocket and lies on his back among the rushes, while lazy dreams<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> flit
+across his consciousness as the light summer clouds rock mistily across
+the blue.</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="ill-081.jpg" id="ill-081.jpg"></a><img src="images/ill-081.jpg" width='556' height='700' alt="Hidden among the willows ... he spends the morning" /></div>
+
+<h4>"Hidden among the willows ... he spends the morning"</h4>
+
+<p>And, the wandering madness still upon him, in the afternoon he skirts
+about and tramps toward Shottery. It is no new thing to go to Shottery
+with or without Mother for a day at the Hathaways'. There always has
+been rebellion in the blood of Will Shakespeare, and there is a slender,
+wayward, grown-up somebody at Shottery who understands. Ann Hathaway has
+stayed often in Stratford with the Shakespeare household. Mother loves
+Ann; Father teases and twits her; the young men, swains and would-be
+sweethearts, swarm about her like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> bumblebees about the honeysuckle at
+the garden gate.</p>
+
+<p>And when she is there, Will himself seldom leaves her side. He has oft
+been a rebellious boy, whereat Mother has sighed and Father has sworn;
+but Ann, staying with them, and she alone, has laughed. She has
+understood.</p>
+
+<p>And there have been times when this tall brown-haired young person has
+seized his hand, as if she too had moments of rebellion, and the two
+have run away&mdash;away from the swains and the would-be sweethearts, the
+Latin grammar and the scoldings, to wander about the river banks and the
+lanes.</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="ill-089.jpg" id="ill-089.jpg"></a><img src="images/ill-089.jpg" width='495' height='700' alt="The two have run away ... to wander about the river banks" /></div>
+
+<h4>"The two have run away ... to wander about the river banks."</h4>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X</h2>
+
+<p>So this afternoon Will tramped off to Shottery. There was a
+consciousness in the back of his mind of wonderful leafiness and
+embowering, of vines and riotous bloom about Ann's home. He opened the
+wicket and trudged up the path, and peered in at the open door. Ann,
+within the doorway, saw him. She looked him in the eye, then up at the
+sun yet high in the sky, and laughed. And he knew she understood
+it&mdash;truancy.</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="ill-093.jpg" id="ill-093.jpg"></a><img src="images/ill-093.jpg" width='510' height='700' alt="He ... trudged up the path and peered in at the open door" /></div>
+
+<h4>"He ... trudged up the path and peered in at the open door"</h4>
+
+<p>Perhaps she understood more than the fact, perhaps she understood the
+feeling. She threw her work aside,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> needle stuck therein, and clapped a
+wide straw hat upon her head and taking his hand dragged him down the
+path and out the gate and away&mdash;along the Evesham road.</p>
+
+<p>But she lectured him nevertheless, this red-cheeked boy with the full as
+yet undisciplined young mouth and the clear, warm hazel eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You tell me that I, too, throw my work down and run away? Ay, Will,
+there's that hot blood within me that sweeps me out every now and then
+from within tame walls and from stupid people, and makes me know it is
+true, the old tale of some wild, gypsy blood brought home by a soldier
+Hathaway for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> wife. But there is this difference, if you please, sir;
+I throw down my work because I have fought my fight and conquered it, am
+mistress of what I will in my household craft. Think you that I love the
+molding of butter and the care of poultry, or to spin, to cut, to sew,
+because I do them and do them well? It is not the thing I love, Will&mdash;it
+is in the victory I find the joy. I would conquer them to feel my power.
+Conquer your book, Will, stride ahead of your class, then play your fill
+till they arrive abreast of you again. But a laggard, a stupid, or a
+middling! And, in faith, the last is worst."</p>
+
+<p>They walked along, boy and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> young woman, she musing, he looking up with
+young ardor into her face. "You&mdash;you are so beautiful, Ann," the boy
+blurted forth, "and&mdash;and&mdash;no one understands as you do."</p>
+
+<p>She laid a hand on his shoulder and turned her dark eyes upon him.
+Teasing eyes they could be and mocking, yet sweet, too. Ah, sweet and
+tender through their laughter!</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I tell you why I understand, Will Shakespeare, child?" Was she
+talking altogether to the boy, or above his head&mdash;aloud&mdash;as to herself?
+"I am a woman, Will, and at nineteen most such are already wife and
+mother, and I am still unwed. Shall I tell you why? We are but souls
+wandering and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> lonely in the dark, Will, other souls everywhere
+around, but scarce a groping hand that ever meets or touches our
+outstretched own. In all life we feel one such touch, perchance, or two.
+The rest we know no more than if they were not there. My father, great,
+simple, countryman's soul, I knew, Will, and Mary Shakespeare I know.
+Would she might learn she could do more with John through laughter, dear
+heart; but the right is ever stronger with Mary than the humor of the
+thing. My father and Mary I have known. And you, you I knew when in your
+rage you fell upon the maid, baby that you were at five, and beat her
+with your fists because she wantonly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> swept your treasures&mdash;a rose
+petal, a beetle wing, a pebble, a feather&mdash;into her kitchen fire. I knew
+you then, for so I had been beating at fate my life long. I knew you,
+Will, and, dear child, always since I have watched and understood. Rebel
+if you will; be free; but to be free, forget not, is to be conqueror
+over that within self first."</p>
+
+<p>Will caught her hand; he whispered; his voice burned hot with a child's
+jealousy.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis said you are to wed Abraham Stripling, Ann, an' that the foreign
+doctor who wants to wed you, broke Abra'm's head with his pestle."</p>
+
+<p>Ann Hathaway laughed; her eyes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> were mocking now; she backed against
+the lichened trunk of a giant elm by the roadside, a young, beauteous
+thing, and looked at the boy in scorn. "I to marry Abraham Stripling!
+Child though you are, you know me better than that. Did I not just tell
+you I am free now&mdash;free? That I have held fast to my duty, and so come
+to where I might be free? Have held them at bay&mdash;family, cousins,
+elders, sweethearts&mdash;until now, the rest married and gone, and the tasks
+as they gave them up come to be mine, my mother needs me, and my life
+may be my own&mdash;and free. For who has come to wed me? Did I not just say
+I was&mdash;I am&mdash;free? A soul groping <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>lonely in the dark? No man's hand has
+reached toward mine that I, a woman and a weakling, could not shake off.
+When the masterful hand, groping, seizes mine, I shall know it, and I&mdash;I
+will kiss it with my lips&mdash;and&mdash;and follow after."</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="ill-097.jpg" id="ill-097.jpg"></a><img src="images/ill-097.jpg" width='581' height='664' alt="'When the masterful hand, groping, seizes mine, I shall know it'" /></div>
+
+<h4>"'When the masterful hand, groping, seizes mine, I shall know it'"</h4>
+
+<p>She came back to him as one from an ecstasy. "And now, child, go on
+home. It is late. And hurry or Mary will be fretting. You have had your
+cake and eaten it. Now go pay for it. 'Discipline must be maintained,'
+says your Welsh schoolmaster. And sure he will flog you."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI</h2>
+
+<p>But no one at home had missed him. The Henley Street house was full of
+hurry and confusion when he arrived. No one noticed him. The neighbors
+came in and out, Mistress Sadler and Mistress Snelling, and the foreign
+doctor who would like to wed Ann, or passed on up to a room above, where
+little sister Annie, named for Ann Hathaway, lay dying of a sudden
+croup. And all since morning, since Will stole away.</p>
+
+<p>He knows this thing called Life, this deep inbreathing, this joy of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
+shout, of run, of leap, of vault. He knows&mdash;strong healthy young
+animal&mdash;he knows this thing. But the other&mdash;this strange thing called
+Death: the darkened room; Father with his head fallen on his breast
+standing at the lattice gazing out at nothing; Mother kneeling, one arm
+outstretched across the bed, her head fallen thereon, and Mistress
+Sadler trying to raise and lead her away; and this&mdash;this waxen whiteness
+framed in flaxen baby rings on the pillow&mdash;this little stiffening hand
+outside the linen cover?</p>
+
+<p>Will Shakespeare cries out. He has touched little sister Annie's hand
+and it is cold.</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="ill-103.jpg" id="ill-103.jpg"></a><img src="images/ill-103.jpg" width='700' height='510' alt="This strange thing called Death...." /></div>
+
+<h4>"This strange thing called Death...."</h4>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII</h2>
+
+<p>And after that, things went worse in the Shakespeare household. All of
+John Shakespeare's ventures were proving failures. Debt pressed on every
+side. There began talk again of a mortgage on the Asbies estate, and
+this time none could say nay.</p>
+
+<p>Dad went about with his head sunk on his breast, and at home sat staring
+in moody silence.</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="ill-107.jpg" id="ill-107.jpg"></a><img src="images/ill-107.jpg" width='540' height='660' alt="Dad ... sat staring in moody silence" /></div>
+
+<h4>"Dad ... sat staring in moody silence"</h4>
+
+<p>"Don't, Mary, don't," he would say to Mother, putting her hand on his
+shoulder. "Take the children away. Instead of the name their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> father
+would have left them, 'John Shakespeare, Gentleman,' they are to read
+it&mdash;what?"</p>
+
+<p>"John, John," said Mother, "is there no more then in it all&mdash;our love,
+our lives&mdash;than pride?"</p>
+
+<p>Pride! Will Shakespeare by now knew what it meant, and his heart went
+out to his father. He had felt the sting of this thing himself. It had
+been the year before. Dad had taken him behind him on his horse to
+Kenilworth, to see the masks and fireworks given by the Earl of
+Leicester in the Queen's honor. The gay London people come down with the
+court had sat in stands and galleries to witness the spectacle of the
+water pageant, breathing their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>perfumed breath down upon the country
+people crowding the ground below. And Will Shakespeare among these, at
+sight of the great Queen, had cheered with a lusty young throat and
+thrown his cap up with the rest. Will Shakespeare was the once chief
+bailiff's son. He was the son of Mary Arden of the Asbies. Though he
+never had thought about it one way or another, he had always known
+himself as good as the best.</p>
+
+<p>And so at Kenilworth, standing with the crowd and looking up at the
+jeweled folk in fine array casting their jokes and gibes down at the
+trammel, he had laughed, too, as honest as any. But when the time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> came
+for the water pageant, Dad had given him a lift up and a boost to the
+branches of a tree. And he had heard what she said, the lady upon whom
+he had from the first fixed his young gaze, the dark lady, with the
+jewels in her dusky hair, breathing lure and beauty and glamour. As he
+straddled the limb of his high perch that brought him so near her, he
+heard her cry out, her head thrown backward on her proud young throat:
+"Ah, the little beast, bringing the breath of the rabble up to our
+nostrils."</p>
+
+<p>And it was something like to what burned in young Will Shakespeare's
+soul then that Dad was feeling now. Will, big boy that he was, laid a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
+hand on Dad's hand. Father looked up; their eyes met.</p>
+
+<p>Dad threw an arm about his shoulder and drew him close&mdash;father and son.</p>
+
+<p>Something passed from the older to the younger. The boy squared his
+shoulders. The man in Will Shakespeare was born.</p>
+
+<p>How best could he help Dad? So the lad pondered, meanwhile digging the
+sense piecemeal out of his <i>Ovid</i> for the morrow's lesson.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>It is the mind that makes the man, and our
+strength&mdash;measure&mdash;vigor</i>"&mdash;any one of the three words would do&mdash;"<i>our
+measure is in our immortal souls</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Why&mdash;why is there truth in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> books? Had Ovid lived and been a man, a man
+who knew and fought it out himself?</p>
+
+<p>Will Shakespeare caught sight of a great and glorious kingdom he had not
+visioned before. The schoolmaster hitherto had talked in riddles.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII</h2>
+
+<p>Yet a year after this Will Shakespeare, just awakened to a love of
+letters, threw his books down. Mother's brown hair, as she leaned over
+her new child, Edmund, showed lines of gray. Dad, the day's trade over,
+sat brooding at home, and scarce would hie him forth, the fear of
+process for debt hanging over him.</p>
+
+<p>Tall sturdy Will Shakespeare could buy up cattle and trade for hides as
+well as the butcher's son in Rother Market. Will Shakespeare<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> threw down
+his books and went forth into the world&mdash;a man.</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="ill-115.jpg" id="ill-115.jpg"></a><img src="images/ill-115.jpg" width='525' height='650' alt="Tall, sturdy Will Shakespeare could buy up cattle ... as well as the butcher's son" /></div>
+
+<h4>"Tall, sturdy Will Shakespeare could buy up cattle ... as well as the butcher's son"</h4>
+
+<p>A man? A man, yes; once his stripling days of hot blood are over, days
+of rustic rout, of fight and wrestle, of deer-stealing, of wanderings
+with strolling players; a man, husband to Ann Hathaway, father of
+children, son of Mary Arden of the Asbies, Gentlewoman&mdash;of John
+Shakespeare, failure, who would be Gentleman; a man, this William
+Shakespeare, gone up to London to do a part in the world. In the world?
+This world wherein all is gain and nothing loss, does one but make it
+so; all is garnering; all is treasure; all, if so one deem it, is
+pageant, poetry, and drama; the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>rustic, the maid, the gammer, the
+tapster, the schoolboy, the master; the lubberfolk, the witch, the
+fairy, the elf, the goblin; the fat woman of Brentford, the man dwelling
+by the churchyard, Snelling, Sadler, Bardolph, Clowder, the old dog; the
+mummer, the wait, the revel, the cates and ale, the player strutting the
+stage as Herod; the sheep-shearing, the pedler, the glove; the white
+rose and the red; the Princes in the tower; St. George and victory;
+king, knight, soldier; the Avon sweetly flowing in its banks; the
+forest; the clouds rocking across the blue; stripling; the foreign
+doctor; queen, courtier, lady; love, life, death; hope, struggle,
+despair;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> pride, ambition, failure; vision, striving, achievement;
+wisdom, philosophy, contemplation; into the world where all is gain and
+nothing loss, does one make it so, went William Shakespeare of
+Stratford, to conquer.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Warwickshire Lad, by George Madden Martin
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WARWICKSHIRE LAD ***
+
+***** This file should be named 27187-h.htm or 27187-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/1/8/27187/
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Martin Pettit and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Kentuckiana Digital Library)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/27187-h/images/ill-002.jpg b/27187-h/images/ill-002.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..38f1be9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-h/images/ill-002.jpg
diff --git a/27187-h/images/ill-003.jpg b/27187-h/images/ill-003.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..689e6f5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-h/images/ill-003.jpg
diff --git a/27187-h/images/ill-017.jpg b/27187-h/images/ill-017.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fa050d6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-h/images/ill-017.jpg
diff --git a/27187-h/images/ill-023.jpg b/27187-h/images/ill-023.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b0b945c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-h/images/ill-023.jpg
diff --git a/27187-h/images/ill-035.jpg b/27187-h/images/ill-035.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5b19be1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-h/images/ill-035.jpg
diff --git a/27187-h/images/ill-041.jpg b/27187-h/images/ill-041.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f8d7579
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-h/images/ill-041.jpg
diff --git a/27187-h/images/ill-047.jpg b/27187-h/images/ill-047.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..159df96
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-h/images/ill-047.jpg
diff --git a/27187-h/images/ill-055.jpg b/27187-h/images/ill-055.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..72e0a4c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-h/images/ill-055.jpg
diff --git a/27187-h/images/ill-059.jpg b/27187-h/images/ill-059.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1912c51
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-h/images/ill-059.jpg
diff --git a/27187-h/images/ill-069.jpg b/27187-h/images/ill-069.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..23c89ab
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-h/images/ill-069.jpg
diff --git a/27187-h/images/ill-075.jpg b/27187-h/images/ill-075.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ef7d132
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-h/images/ill-075.jpg
diff --git a/27187-h/images/ill-081.jpg b/27187-h/images/ill-081.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6f208f5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-h/images/ill-081.jpg
diff --git a/27187-h/images/ill-089.jpg b/27187-h/images/ill-089.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..24e5c57
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-h/images/ill-089.jpg
diff --git a/27187-h/images/ill-093.jpg b/27187-h/images/ill-093.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b92ca77
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-h/images/ill-093.jpg
diff --git a/27187-h/images/ill-097.jpg b/27187-h/images/ill-097.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1323dab
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-h/images/ill-097.jpg
diff --git a/27187-h/images/ill-103.jpg b/27187-h/images/ill-103.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e277c44
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-h/images/ill-103.jpg
diff --git a/27187-h/images/ill-107.jpg b/27187-h/images/ill-107.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..882d746
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-h/images/ill-107.jpg
diff --git a/27187-h/images/ill-115.jpg b/27187-h/images/ill-115.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..14aeef9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-h/images/ill-115.jpg
diff --git a/27187-page-images/f0001.png b/27187-page-images/f0001.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3b3aef9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/f0001.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/f0002-image1.png b/27187-page-images/f0002-image1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c47a465
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/f0002-image1.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/f0003.png b/27187-page-images/f0003.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2f67991
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/f0003.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/f0004.png b/27187-page-images/f0004.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e39cdeb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/f0004.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/f0005.png b/27187-page-images/f0005.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..23352f6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/f0005.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/f0006.png b/27187-page-images/f0006.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..97cc7eb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/f0006.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/f0007.png b/27187-page-images/f0007.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d7a4a05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/f0007.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0009.png b/27187-page-images/p0009.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f67cfa5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0009.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0010.png b/27187-page-images/p0010.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5fa1397
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0010.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0011.png b/27187-page-images/p0011.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8c003b7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0011.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0012.png b/27187-page-images/p0012.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f56f5ff
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0012.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0013.png b/27187-page-images/p0013.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a939c1b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0013.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0014.png b/27187-page-images/p0014.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fcd5b15
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0014.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0015.png b/27187-page-images/p0015.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aed7fd3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0015.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0016.png b/27187-page-images/p0016.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3fd0e8f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0016.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0017-image1.png b/27187-page-images/p0017-image1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d88341b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0017-image1.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0019.png b/27187-page-images/p0019.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cc375da
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0019.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0020.png b/27187-page-images/p0020.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3bd5562
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0020.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0021.png b/27187-page-images/p0021.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..069bcb9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0021.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0022.png b/27187-page-images/p0022.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9f95e29
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0022.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0023-image1.png b/27187-page-images/p0023-image1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..82722f3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0023-image1.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0025.png b/27187-page-images/p0025.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..63ab887
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0025.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0026.png b/27187-page-images/p0026.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..26850ff
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0026.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0027.png b/27187-page-images/p0027.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b6ca90f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0027.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0028.png b/27187-page-images/p0028.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..03675c8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0028.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0029.png b/27187-page-images/p0029.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0c6afb1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0029.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0030.png b/27187-page-images/p0030.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2d9b360
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0030.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0031.png b/27187-page-images/p0031.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7fbf33b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0031.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0032.png b/27187-page-images/p0032.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4e0d189
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0032.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0033.png b/27187-page-images/p0033.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..83a4602
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0033.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0034.png b/27187-page-images/p0034.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..56ffd40
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0034.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0035-image1.png b/27187-page-images/p0035-image1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..91d4d92
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0035-image1.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0037.png b/27187-page-images/p0037.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ecb533e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0037.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0038.png b/27187-page-images/p0038.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3967f65
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0038.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0039.png b/27187-page-images/p0039.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..74da3d2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0039.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0040-insert1.png b/27187-page-images/p0040-insert1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..61c9f32
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0040-insert1.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0040.png b/27187-page-images/p0040.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b7c1146
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0040.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0041.png b/27187-page-images/p0041.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7443996
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0041.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0042.png b/27187-page-images/p0042.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..986ebb9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0042.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0043.png b/27187-page-images/p0043.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2470069
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0043.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0044.png b/27187-page-images/p0044.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..391f98b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0044.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0045-image1.png b/27187-page-images/p0045-image1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9358bf1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0045-image1.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0047.png b/27187-page-images/p0047.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a511245
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0047.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0048.png b/27187-page-images/p0048.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e0993d4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0048.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0049.png b/27187-page-images/p0049.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cd78764
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0049.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0050.png b/27187-page-images/p0050.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8bbfe49
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0050.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0051.png b/27187-page-images/p0051.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d8d3d2a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0051.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0052.png b/27187-page-images/p0052.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3db16a6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0052.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0053-image1.png b/27187-page-images/p0053-image1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4cd23e2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0053-image1.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0055.png b/27187-page-images/p0055.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4f69712
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0055.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0056.png b/27187-page-images/p0056.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..24b6ae3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0056.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0057-image1.png b/27187-page-images/p0057-image1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b618c5a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0057-image1.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0059.png b/27187-page-images/p0059.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7085f2c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0059.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0060.png b/27187-page-images/p0060.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3c51047
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0060.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0061.png b/27187-page-images/p0061.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6abb9b5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0061.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0062.png b/27187-page-images/p0062.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..73079e9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0062.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0063.png b/27187-page-images/p0063.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7429880
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0063.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0064.png b/27187-page-images/p0064.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..59a2656
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0064.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0065.png b/27187-page-images/p0065.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..49eb278
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0065.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0066.png b/27187-page-images/p0066.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..202258e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0066.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0067-image1.png b/27187-page-images/p0067-image1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..010a3c7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0067-image1.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0069.png b/27187-page-images/p0069.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3b2d000
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0069.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0070.png b/27187-page-images/p0070.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cd65648
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0070.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0071.png b/27187-page-images/p0071.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cf3c2d9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0071.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0072.png b/27187-page-images/p0072.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0e69b84
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0072.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0073-image1.png b/27187-page-images/p0073-image1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..abba0fd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0073-image1.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0075.png b/27187-page-images/p0075.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1cab62e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0075.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0076.png b/27187-page-images/p0076.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..abd1e87
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0076.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0077.png b/27187-page-images/p0077.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..22d046f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0077.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0078.png b/27187-page-images/p0078.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6e58fdf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0078.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0079-image1.png b/27187-page-images/p0079-image1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ad9f7ed
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0079-image1.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0081.png b/27187-page-images/p0081.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7a193a1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0081.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0082.png b/27187-page-images/p0082.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c3d0e31
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0082.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0083-insert1.png b/27187-page-images/p0083-insert1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3cb9813
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0083-insert1.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0083.png b/27187-page-images/p0083.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..98daa1c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0083.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0084.png b/27187-page-images/p0084.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1146ebe
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0084.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0085.png b/27187-page-images/p0085.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b9e0a4a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0085.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0086.png b/27187-page-images/p0086.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b72459d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0086.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0087.png b/27187-page-images/p0087.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e9d132b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0087.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0088.png b/27187-page-images/p0088.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ce907fc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0088.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0089-image1.png b/27187-page-images/p0089-image1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4fc8a2d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0089-image1.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0091.png b/27187-page-images/p0091.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7267074
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0091.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0092.png b/27187-page-images/p0092.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..68c8a48
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0092.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0093-image1.png b/27187-page-images/p0093-image1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9d5f80b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0093-image1.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0095.png b/27187-page-images/p0095.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4bdedd5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0095.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0096.png b/27187-page-images/p0096.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..962f8f9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0096.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0097-insert1.png b/27187-page-images/p0097-insert1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7a72e4a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0097-insert1.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0097.png b/27187-page-images/p0097.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..46120f6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0097.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0098.png b/27187-page-images/p0098.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1605ac2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0098.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0099.png b/27187-page-images/p0099.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..568c859
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0099.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0100.png b/27187-page-images/p0100.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8775b94
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0100.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0101-image1.png b/27187-page-images/p0101-image1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..029e4fa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0101-image1.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0103.png b/27187-page-images/p0103.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..630227d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0103.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0104.png b/27187-page-images/p0104.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..053e8af
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0104.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0105.png b/27187-page-images/p0105.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b234b51
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0105.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0106.png b/27187-page-images/p0106.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a4c409b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0106.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0107.png b/27187-page-images/p0107.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0c506d3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0107.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0108.png b/27187-page-images/p0108.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..27ea326
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0108.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0109-image1.png b/27187-page-images/p0109-image1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..325fcea
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0109-image1.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0111.png b/27187-page-images/p0111.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..77e4070
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0111.png
diff --git a/27187-page-images/p0112.png b/27187-page-images/p0112.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0f9845d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187-page-images/p0112.png
diff --git a/27187.txt b/27187.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4118555
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,1426 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Warwickshire Lad, by George Madden Martin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Warwickshire Lad
+       The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare
+
+Author: George Madden Martin
+
+Release Date: November 7, 2008 [EBook #27187]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WARWICKSHIRE LAD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Martin Pettit and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Kentuckiana Digital Library)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A WARWICKSHIRE LAD
+
+[Illustration: Birthplace of Shakespeare]
+
+
+A WARWICKSHIRE LAD
+
+
+THE.STORY.OF.THE.BOYHOOD
+OF.WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
+
+by GEORGE . MADDEN . MARTIN
+
+Author of "Selina," "Emmy Lou," etc.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+ D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
+NEW YORK           LONDON
+         MDCCCCXVI
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY P. F. COLLIER & SON, INC
+
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+Birthplace of Shakespeare                                 _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+"Will clambered up on the settle to think it all over"                17
+
+"Dad bends to tweak the ear of Will"                                  23
+
+"'Ay, but those are brave words, Hammie,' says Gammer"                35
+
+"'Save us! What's that!' cried Gammer"                _facing page_   40
+
+"'Ay, boy, you shall see the players'"                                45
+
+"'An' I shall be a player, too,' ... says Willy Shakespeare"          53
+
+"His mother stepping now and then to the lattice window"              57
+
+"Bound for Grandfather's at Snitterfield they were"                   67
+
+"For instance he knew one Bardolph ... the tapster at the tavern"     73
+
+"Hidden away among the willows ... he spends the morning"             79
+
+"The two have run away ... to wander about the river banks"
+                                                        _facing page_ 86
+
+"He ... trudged up the path and peered in at the open door"           89
+
+"'When the masterful hand, groping, seizes mine, I shall know it'"    93
+
+"This strange thing called Death...."                   _facing page_ 98
+
+"Dad ... sat staring in moody silence"                               101
+
+"Tall, sturdy Will Shakespeare could buy up cattle ... as well as
+    the butcher's son"                                               109
+
+
+
+
+A WARWICKSHIRE LAD
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Little Will Shakespeare was going homeward through the dusk from Gammer
+Gurton's fireside. He had no timorous fears, not he. He would walk
+proudly and deliberately as becomes a man. Men are not afraid. Yet
+Gammer had told of strange happenings at her home. A magpie had flown
+screaming over the roof, the butter would not come in the churn, an' a
+strange cat had slipped out afore the maid at daybreak--a cat without a
+tail, Gammer said--
+
+Little Will quickened his pace.
+
+Dusk falls early these December days, and Willy Shakespeare scurrying
+along the street is only five, and although men are not afraid yet----
+
+So presently when he pulls up he is panting, and he beats against the
+stubborn street door with little red fists, and falls in at its sudden
+opening, breathless.
+
+But Mother's finger is on her lips as she looks up from her low chair in
+the living-room, for the whole world in this Henley Street household
+stands still and holds its breath when Baby Brother sleeps. Brought up
+short, Will tiptoes over to the chimney corner. Why will toes stump when
+one most wants to move noiselessly? He is panting still too with his
+hurrying and with all he has to tell.
+
+"She says," begins Will before he has even reached Mother's side and his
+whisper is awesome, "Gammer says that Margery is more than any ailin',
+she is."
+
+Now chimney corners may be wide and generous and cheerful with their
+blazing log, but they open into rooms which as night comes on grow big
+and shadowy, with flickers up against the raftered darkness of the
+ceilings. Little Will Shakespeare presses closer to his mother's side.
+"She says, Gammer does, she says that Margery is witched."
+
+Now Margery was the serving-maid at the house of Gammer Gurton's
+son-in-law, Goodman Sadler, with whom Gammer lived.
+
+Mother at this speaks sharply. She is outdone about it. "A pretty tale
+for a child to be hearing," she says. "It is but a fearbabe. I wonder at
+Gammer, I do."
+
+And turning aside from the cradle which she has been rocking, she lifts
+small Will to her lap, and he stretching frosty fingers and toes all
+tingling to the heat, snuggles close. He is glad Mother speaks sharply
+and is outdone about it; somehow this makes it more reassuring.
+
+"Witched!" says Mother. "Tell me! 'Tis lingering in the lane after dark
+with that gawky country sweetheart has given her the fever that her
+betters have been having since the Avon come over bank. A wet autumn is
+more to be feared than Gammer's witches. Poor luck it is the lubberfolk
+aren't after the girl in truth; a slattern maid she is, her hearth
+unswept and house-door always open and the cream ever a-chill. The
+brownie-folk, I promise you, Will, pinch black and blue for less."
+
+Mother is laughing at him. Little Will recognizes that and smiles back,
+but half-heartedly, for he is not through confessing.
+
+"I don't like to wear it down my back," says he. "It tickles."
+
+"Wear what?" asks Mother, but even as she speaks must partly divine,
+for a finger and thumb go searching down between his little nape and the
+collar of his doublet, and in a moment they draw it forth, a bit of
+witches' elm.
+
+"Gammer, she sewed it there," says Will.
+
+A little frown was gathering between Mother's brows, which was making
+small Willy Shakespeare feel still more reassured and comfortable, when
+suddenly she gave a cry and start, half rising, so that he, startled
+too, slid perforce to the floor, clinging to her gown.
+
+Whereupon Mother sank back in her chair, her hand pressed against the
+kerchief crossed over her bosom, and laughed shamefacedly, for it had
+been nothing more terrible that had startled her than big, purring
+Graymalkin, the cat, insinuating his sleek back under her hand as he
+arched and rubbed about her chair. And so, sitting down shamefacedly,
+she gathered Will up again and called him goose and little chuck, as if
+he and not she had been the one to jump and cry out.
+
+But he laughed boisterously. The joke was on Mother, and so he laughed
+loud, as becomes a man when the joke is on the women folk.
+
+"Ho!" said Will Shakespeare.
+
+"Sh-h-h!" said Mother.
+
+But the mischief was done and Will must get out of her lap, for little
+Brother Gilbert, awakened, was whimpering in the cradle.
+
+Will clambered up on the settle to think it all over. Mother had started
+and cried out. So after all was Mother afraid too? Of--of things? Had
+she said it all to reassure him? The magpie had flown screaming over the
+house for he had seen it. So what if the rest were true--that the cat,
+the cat without the tail stealing out at daybreak, had been--what Gammer
+said--a witch, weaving overnight her spell about poor Margery? He knew
+how it would have been; he had heard whispers about these things before;
+the dying embers on the hearth, the little waxen figure laid to melt
+thereon, the witch-woman weaving the charm about--now swifter, faster
+circling--with passes of hands above.
+
+[Illustration: "Will clambered up on the settle to think it all over"]
+
+Little Will Shakespeare, terrified at his own imaginings, clutched
+himself, afraid to move. Is that only a shadow yonder in the corner, now
+creeping toward him, now stealing away?
+
+What is that at the pane? Is it the frozen twigs of the old pippin, or
+the tapping fingers of some night creature without?
+
+Will Shakespeare falls off the settle in his haste and scuttles to
+Mother. Once there, he hopes she does not guess why he hangs to her so
+closely. But he is glad, nevertheless, when the candles are brought in.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+But these things all vanish from mind when the outer door opens and Dad
+comes in stamping and blowing. Dad is late, but men are always late. It
+is expected that they should come in late and laugh at the women who
+chide and remind them that candles cost and that it makes the maid testy
+to be kept waiting.
+
+Men should laugh loud like Dad, and catch Mother under the chin and kiss
+her once, twice, three times. Will means to be just such a man when he
+grows up, and to fill the room with his big shoulders and bigger laugh
+as Dad is doing now while tossing Brother Gilbert. He, little Will, he
+will never be one like Goodman Sadler, Gammer's son-in-law, with a lean,
+long nose, and a body slipping flatlike through a crack of the door.
+
+And here Dad bends to tweak the ear of Will who would laugh noisily if
+it hurt twice as badly. It makes him feel himself a man to wink back
+those tears of pain.
+
+[Illustration: "Dad bends to tweak the ear of Will"]
+
+"A busy afternoon this, Mary," says Dad. "Old Timothy Quinn from out
+Welcombe way was in haggling over a dozen hides to sell. Then Burbage
+was over from Coventry about that matter of the players, and kept me so
+that I had to send Bardolph out with your Cousin Lambert to Wilmcote to
+mark that timber for felling."
+
+Now for all Master Shakespeare's big, off-hand mentioning thus of facts,
+this was meant for a confession.
+
+Mary Shakespeare had risen to take the crowing Gilbert, handed back to
+her by her husband, and with the other hand was encircling Will, holding
+to her skirt. She was tall, with both grace and state, and there was a
+chestnut warmth in the hair about her clear, white brow and nape, and in
+the brown of her serene and tender eyes. These eyes smiled at John
+Shakespeare with a hint of upbraiding, and she shook her head at him
+with playful reproach.
+
+Little Will saw her do it. He knew too how to interpret such a look. Had
+Father been naughty?
+
+"You are not selling more of the timber, John?" asked Mother.
+
+"Say the word, Mistress Mary Arden of the Asbies," says Father grandly,
+"and I stop the bargain with your Cousin Lambert where it stands. 'Tis
+yours to say about your own. Though nothing spend, how shall a man live
+up to his state? But it shall be as you say, although 'tis for you and
+the boy. He is the chief bailiff's son--his Dad can feel he has given
+him that, but would have him more. I have never forgot your people felt
+their Mary stepped down to wed a Shakespeare. I have applied to the
+Herald's College for a grant of arms. The Shakespeares are as good as
+any who fought to place the crown on Henry VII's head. But it shall be
+stopped. The land and the timber on it is Mistress Mary Shakespeare's,
+not mine."
+
+But Mary, pushing little Will aside clung to her husband's arm, and the
+warmth in her tender eyes deepened to something akin to yearning as they
+looked up at him. With the man of her choice, and her children--with
+these Mary Shakespeare's life and heart were full. There was no room for
+ambition for she was content. Had life been any sweeter to her as Mary
+Arden of the Asbies, daughter of a gentleman, than as Mary Shakespeare,
+wife of a dealer in leathers? Nay, nor as sweet!
+
+But she could not make her husband see it so. Yet--and she looked up at
+him with a sudden passion of love in that gaze--it was this big,
+sanguine, restless, masterful spirit in him that had won her. From the
+narrow, restricted conditions of a provincial gentlewoman's life, she
+had looked out into a bigger world for living, through the eyes of this
+masterful yeoman, his heart big with desire to conquer and ambition to
+achieve. Was her faith in his capacity to know and seize the essential
+in his venturing, less now than then? Never, never--not that, not that!
+
+"Do as you will about it, John," begs Mary, her cheek against his arm,
+"only--is it kind to say the land is mine? We talked that all out once,
+goodman mine. Only this one thing more, John, for I would not seem ever
+to carp and faultfind--you know that, don't you?--but that Bardolph----"
+
+"He's a low tavern fellow, I allow, Mary--of course, of course. I know
+all you would say--his nose afire and his ruffian black poll ever being
+broken in some brawl, but he's a good enough fellow behind it, and
+useful to me. You needs must keep on terms with high and low, Mary, to
+hold the good will of all. That's why I am anxious to arrange this
+matter with Burbage to have the players here, if the Guild will
+consent----"
+
+"Players?" says Will, listening at his father's side. "What are
+players?"
+
+"Tut," says Dad, "not know the players! They are actors, Will--players.
+Hear the boy--not know the players!"
+
+But Mother strokes his hair. "When I told you a tale, sweet, this very
+morn, you went to playing it after. I was the Queen-mother, you said,
+outside the prison walls, and you and Brother were the little Princes
+in the cruel tower, and thus you played. You stood at the casement, two
+gentle babes, cradling each other in your arms, and called to me below.
+So with the players, child, they play the story out instead of telling
+it. But now, these my babes to bed."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+The next day things seem different. One no longer feels afraid, while
+the memory of Gammer's tales is alluring. Will remembers, too, that
+greens from the forest were ordered sent to the Sadlers for the making
+of garlands for the Town Hall revels. Small Willy Shakespeare slipped
+off from home that afternoon.
+
+Reaching the Sadlers, he stopped on the threshold abashed. The
+living-room was filled with neighbors come to help--young men, girls,
+with here and there some older folk--all gathered about a pile of
+greens in the center of the floor, from which each was choosing his bit,
+while garlands and wreaths half done lay about in the rushes.
+
+But, though his baby soul dreams it not, there is ever a place and
+welcome for a chief bailiff's little son. They turn at his entrance, and
+Mistress Sadler bids him come in; her cousin at her elbow praises his
+eyes--shade of hazel nut, she calls them. And Gammer, peering to find
+the cause of interruption and spying him, pushes a stool out from under
+her feet and curving a yellow, shaking finger, beckons and points him to
+it. But while doing so, she does not stay her quavering and garrulous
+recital. He has come, then, in time to hear the tale?
+
+"An' the man, by name of Gosling," Gammer is saying, "dwelt by a
+churchyard----"
+
+Will Shakespeare slips to his place on the stool.
+
+Hamnet is next to him, Hamnet Sadler who is eight, almost a man grown.
+Hamnet's cheeks are red and hard and shining, and he stands square and
+looks you in the face. Hamnet has a fist, too, and has thrashed the
+butcher's son down by the Rother Market, though the butcher's son is
+nine.
+
+Here Hamnet nudges Will. What is this he is saying? About Gammer, his
+very own grandame?
+
+"Ben't no witches," mutters Hamnet to Will. "Schoolmaster says so. Says
+the like of Gammer's talk is naught but women's tales."
+
+Whereupon Gammer pauses and turns her puckered eyes down upon the two
+urchins at her knee. Has she heard what her grandson said? Will
+Shakespeare feels as guilty as if he had been the one to say it.
+
+"Ay, but those are brave words, Hammie," says Gammer, and she wags her
+sharp chin knowingly; "brave words. An' you shall take the bowl yonder
+and fetch a round o' pippins from the cellar for us here. Candle? La,
+you know the way full well. The dusk is hardly fell. Nay, you're not
+plucking Judith's sleeve, Hammie? You are not a lad to want a sister
+at elbow? Go, now! What say you, Mistress Snelling? The tale? An' Willy
+Shakespeare here, all eyes and open mouth for it, too? Ay, but he's the
+rascalliest sweet younker for the tale. An' where were we? Ay, the fat
+woman of Brentford had just come to Goodman Gosling's house----
+
+[Illustration: "'Ay, but those are brave words, Hammie,' says Gammer"]
+
+"Come back an' shut the door behind you, Hammie; there's more than a nip
+to these December gales. I' faith, how the lad drumbles, a clumsy
+lob----
+
+"As you say, the fat woman of Brentford, one Gossip Pratt by name, an' a
+two yards round by common say she was, an' that beard showing on her
+chin under her thrummed hat an' muffler, a man with score o' years to
+beard need not be ashamed of--this same woman comes to Goodman
+Gosling's, him as dwelt by the churchyard. But he, avised about her
+dealings, sent her speedily away, most like not choosing his words, him
+being of a jandered, queazy stomach, an' something given to tongue. For
+an hour following her going, an' you'll believe me--an' I had it from
+his wife's cousin a-come ten year this simple time when I visited my
+sister's daughter Nan at Brentford--his hogs fell sick an' died to the
+number o' twenty an' he helpless afore their bloating and swelling.
+
+"Nor did it end there, for his children falling ill soon after--a
+pretty dears they were, I mind them, a-hanging of their heads to see a
+stranger, an' a finger in mouth--they falling sick, the woman of
+Brentford come again, an' this time all afraid to say her nay. An'
+layin' off her cloak, she took the youngest from the mother's breast,
+dandling an' chucking it like an honest woman, whereupon it fell
+a-sudden in a swoon.
+
+"An' Goodwife Gosling seizing it, an' mindful of her being a
+witch-woman, calling on the name of God, straightway there fell out of
+the child's blanket a great toad which exploded in the fire like any
+gunpowder, an' the room that full o' smoke an' brimstone as none
+could--Save us! What's that!" cried Gammer.
+
+[Illustration: "'Save us! What's that!' cried Gammer"]
+
+What, indeed! That cry--this rush along the passageway! Will
+Shakespeare, with heart a-still, clutches at Gammer's gown as there
+follows a crash against the oaken panels.
+
+But as the door bursts open, it is Hamnet, head-first, sprawling into
+the room, the pippins preceding him over the floor.
+
+"It were ahind me, breathin' hoarse, on the cellar stairs," whimpers
+Hamnet, gathering himself to his knees, his fist burrowing into his
+eyes.
+
+Nor does he know why at this moment the laughter rises loud. For
+Hamnet cannot see what the others can--the white nose of Clowder, the
+asthmatic old house-dog, coming inquiringly over his shoulder, her tail
+wagging inquiry as to the wherefore of the uproar.
+
+But somehow, little Will Shakespeare did not laugh. Instead his cheeks
+and his ears burned hot for Hamnet. Judith did not laugh either. Judith
+was ten, and Hamnet's sister, and her black eyes flashed around on them
+all for laughing, and her cheeks were hot. Judith flung a look at
+Gammer, too, her own Gammer. And Will's heart warmed to Judith, and he
+went too when she sprang to help Hamnet.
+
+Hamnet's face was scarlet yet as he fumbled around among the rushes and
+the greens for the pippins, and this done he retired hastily to his
+stool. But three-legged stools are uncertain, and he sat him heavily
+down on the rushes instead.
+
+Whereupon they laughed the louder, the girls and the women too--laughed
+until the candle flames flickered and flared, and Gammer, choking over
+her bowl, for cates and cider were being handed round, spilled the drink
+all down her withered neck and over her gown, wheezing and gasping until
+her daughter snatched the bowl from her and shook the breath back into
+her with no gentle hand.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Meanwhile Will plucked Hamnet now blubbering on his stool, by the
+doublet. But Hamnet, turned sullen, shook him off. Perhaps he did not
+know that Will and Judith had not laughed. But since Hamnet saw fit to
+shake him off, Will was glad that just then, with a rush of cold air and
+a sprinkling of snow upon his short coat, Dad came in. His face was
+ruddy, and as he glanced laughingly around upon them all, he drew deep
+breath of the spicy evergreens, so that he filled his doublet and
+close-throated jerkin to their full.
+
+"Good-even to you, neighbors," says Dad. "An' is it great wonder the boy
+will run away to hie him here? The rogue kens a good thing equal to his
+elders. But come, boy; your mother is even now sure you have wandered to
+the river."
+
+And Dad, with a mighty swing, shoulders Will, steadying him with a palm
+under both small feet; then pauses at Mistress Snelling's questioning.
+
+"Is it true," she inquires, "that the players are coming?"
+
+Sandy-hued Mistress Sadler stiffens and bridles at the question. The
+Sadlers, whisper says, are Puritanical, whereas there are those who
+hold that John Shakespeare and his household, for all they are observant
+of church matters, have still a Catholic leaning. Fond of genial John
+Shakespeare as the Sadler household are, they shake their heads over
+some things, and the players are one of these.
+
+"Is it true they are coming?" repeats Mistress Snelling.
+
+"Ay," says Dad, "an' John Shakespeare the man to be thanked for it. Come
+Twelfth Day sennight, at the Guild Hall, Mistress Snelling."
+
+"Am I to see them, Dad?" whispers small Will, his head down and an arm
+tight about his father's neck as they go out the door.
+
+"Ay, you inch," promises Dad, stooping, too, as they go under the
+lintel beneath the penthouse roof, out into the frosty night. The stars
+are beginning to twinkle through the dusk, and the frozen path crunches
+underfoot. On each side, as they go up the street, the yards about the
+houses stand bare and gaunt with leafless stalks.
+
+"Yes," says Dad. "Ay, boy, you shall see the players from between Dad's
+knees."
+
+[Illustration: "'Ay, boy, you shall see the players'"]
+
+And like the old familiar stories we put on the shelf, gloating the
+while over the unproven treasures between the lids of the new,
+straightway Gammer's tales are forgot. And above the wind, as it whips
+scurries of snow around the corners, pipes Will's voice as they trudge
+home. But his pipings, his catechisings, now are concerned with this
+unknown world summed up in the magic term, "The Players."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+And Dad was as good as his word. First came Christmastide, with all
+Master Shakespeare's fellow burgesses to dine and the house agog with
+preparation. No wonder John Shakespeare had need of money to live up to
+his estate, for next came the Twelfth Night revels with the mummers and
+waits to be fed and boxed at the chief bailiff's door. And Mary
+Shakespeare said never a word, but did her husband's bidding cheerfully,
+even gayly. She had set herself to go his way with faith in his power to
+wrest success out of venture, and she was not one to take back her
+word.
+
+The week following, John Shakespeare carried his little son to see the
+players.
+
+"And was it not as I said?" Mother asked, when the two returned. "Did
+not the child fall asleep in the midst of it?"
+
+"Sleep!" laughed Dad, clapping Will, so fine in a little green velvet
+coat, upon the shoulder. "He sleep! You do not know the boy. His cheeks
+were like your best winter apples, an' his eyes, bless the rogue, are
+shining yet. An' trotting homeward at my heels, he has scarce had breath
+to run for talking of it. 'Tis in the blood, boy; your father before
+you loves a good play, an' the players, too."
+
+And Will, blowing upon his nails aching with the cold, stands squarely
+with his small legs apart, and looks up at Father. "An' I shall be a
+player, too, when I'm a man," says Willy Shakespeare. "I shall be a
+player and wear a dagger like Herod, an' walk about an' draw it--so----"
+and struts him up and down while his father laughs and claps hand to
+knee and roars again, until Mistress Shakespeare tells him he it is who
+spoils the child.
+
+[Illustration: "'An' I shall be a player, too' ... says Willy
+Shakespeare"]
+
+But for Will Shakespeare the curtain had risen on a new world, a world
+of giant, of hero, of story, a world of glitter, of pageant, of
+scarlet and purple and gold. And now henceforth the flagstoned floor
+about the chimney was a stage upon which Mother and Brother and Kitty,
+the maid, at little Will's bidding, with Will himself, played a part; a
+stage where Virtue, in other words Will with the parcel-gilt goblet
+upside down upon his head for crown, ever triumphed over Vice, in the
+person of dull Kitty, with her knitting on the stool; or where,
+according to the play, in turn, Noah or Abraham or Jesus Christ walked
+in Heaven, while Herod or Pilate, Cain or Judas, burned in yawning Hell.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+But as spring came, the garden offered a broader stage for life. The
+Shakespeare house was in Henley Street, and a fine house it was--too
+fine, some held, for a man in John Shakespeare's
+circumstances--two-storied, of timber and plaster, with dormer-windows
+and a penthouse over its door. And like its neighbors, the house stood
+with a yard at the side, and behind, a garden of flowers and fruit and
+herbs. And here the boy played the warm days through, his mother
+stepping now and then to the lattice window to see what he was about.
+And, gazing, often she saw him through tears, because of a yearning love
+over him, the more because of the two children dead before his coming.
+
+[Illustration: "His mother stepping now and then to the lattice window
+..."]
+
+And Will, seeing her there, would tear into the house and drag her by
+the hand forth into the sweet, rain-washed air.
+
+"An' see, Mother," he would tell her, as he haled her on to the sward
+beyond the arbor, "here it is, the story you told us yester-e'en. Here
+is the ring where they danced last night, the little folk, an' here is
+the glow-worm caught in the spider's web to give them light."
+
+But something had changed Mary Shakespeare's mood. John Shakespeare,
+chief bailiff and burgess of Stratford, was being sued for an old debt,
+and one which Mary Shakespeare had been allowed to think was paid.
+Thereupon came to light other outstanding debts of which she had not
+known which must be met. John Shakespeare, with irons in so many fires,
+seemed forever to have put money out, in ventures in leather, in wool,
+in corn, in timber, and to have drawn none in. And now he talked of a
+mortgage on the Asbies estate.
+
+"Never," Mary told herself, with a look at little Will, at toddling
+Gilbert at her feet, with a thought for the unborn child soon to add
+another inmate to the household--"not with my consent. When the time
+comes they are grown, what will be left for them?"
+
+She was bitter about the secrecy of those debts incurred unknown to her.
+And yet to set herself against John!
+
+Wandering with the children down the garden-path, idly she plucked a red
+rose and laid its cheek against a white one already in her hand. A
+kingdom divided against itself.
+
+She sighed, then became conscious of the boy pulling at her sleeve.
+
+"Tell us a story, Mother," he was begging, "a story with fighting an' a
+sword."
+
+"A story, Will, with fighting and a sword?" Never yet could she say the
+child nay. She held her roses from her and pondered while she gazed. And
+her heart was bitter.
+
+"There was an Arden, child, whose blood is in your veins, who fought and
+fell at Barnet, crying shrill and fierce, 'Edward my King, St. George
+and victory!' And the young Edward, near him as he fell, called to a
+knight to lay hand to his heart, for Edward knew and loved him well, and
+had received of him money for a long-forgotten debt which young Edward's
+father would not press. So Edward called to a knight to lay hand upon
+his heart. But he was dead. 'A soldier and a knight,' said he who was
+afterward the King, 'and more--an honest man.'"
+
+Then she pushed the boy aside and going swiftly to the house ran to her
+room; and face laid in her hands she wept. What had she said in the
+bitterness of her feeling? What--even to herself--had she said?
+
+Yet money must be had, she admitted that. But to encumber the estate!
+
+She shrank from her own people knowing; she had inherited more of her
+father's estate than her sisters, and there had been feeling, and her
+brothers-in-law, Lambert and Webb, would be but upheld in their
+prophecies about her husband's capacity to care for her property. She
+would not have them know. "Talk it over first with your father, John,"
+she told her husband, "or with your brother Henry. Let us not rush
+blindly into this thing. You had promised anyhow, you remember, to take
+Will out to the sheep-shearing."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+So the next morning John Shakespeare swung Will up on the horse before
+him, and the two rode away through the chill mistiness of the dawn, Will
+kissing his hand back to Mother in the doorway. Bound for Grandfather's
+at Snitterfield they were. So out through the town, past the scattering
+homesteads with their gardens and orchards, traveled Robin, the stout
+gray cob, small Will's chattering voice as high-piped as the bird-calls
+through the dawn; on into the open country of meadows and cultivated
+fields, the mists lifting rosy before the coming sun, through lanes
+with mossy banks, cobwebs spun between the blooming hedgerows heavy with
+dew, over the hills, past the straggling ash and hawthorn of the
+dingles. And everywhere the cold, moist scent of dawn, and peep and call
+of nest-birds.
+
+[Illustration: "Bound for Grandfather's at Snitterfield they were"]
+
+And so early has been their start and so good stout Robin's pace, that
+reaching the Snitterfield farm, they find everything in the hurly-burly
+of preparation for sheep-shearing. So, after a hearty kissing by the
+womenfolk, aunts and cousins, Will, with a cake hot from the baking
+thrust into his hand, goes out to the steading to look around. At
+Snitterfield there are poultry, and calves, too, in the byre, and
+little pigs in the pen back of the barn. Then comes breakfast in the
+kitchen with the farm-hands with their clattering hobnailed shoes and
+tarry hands, after which follows the business of sheep-washing, which
+Will views from the shady bank of the pool, and in his small heart he is
+quite torn because of the plaintive bleatings of the frightened sheep.
+But he swallows it as a man should. There is a pedler haunting the
+sheep-shearing festivals of the neighborhood. The women have sent for
+him to bring his pack to Snitterfield, and Dad bids Will choose a pair
+of scented gloves for Mother--and be quick; they must be off for
+Stratford before the noon.
+
+Dad seems short and curt. Grandfather, his broad, florid face upturned
+to Dad astride Robin, shakes his hoary head. "Doan' you do it, son
+John," says Grandfather; "'tis a-building on sand is any man who thinks
+to prosper on a mortgage. Henry and I'll advance you a bit. After which,
+cut down your living in Henley Street, son John, an' draw in the
+purse-strings."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+But baby years pass. When Will Shakespeare is six, he hears that he is
+to go to school. But not to nod over a hornbook at the petty school--not
+John Shakespeare's son! Little Will Shakespeare is entered at King's New
+College, which is a grammar-school.
+
+But, dear me! Dear me! It was a dreary place and irksome. At first small
+Will sat among his kind awed. When Schoolmaster breathed Will breathed,
+but when Schoolmaster glanced frowningly up from under overhanging brows
+like penthouse roofs, then the heart of Will Shakespeare quaked within
+him.
+
+But that was while he was six. At seven, when the elements of Latin
+grammar confronted him, Will had already found grammar-school an
+excellent place to plead aching tooth or heavy head to stay away from.
+At eight, a dreary traveling for him to cover did his "_Sententiae
+Pueriles_" prove, and idle paths more pleasing.
+
+At nine, he had learned to know many things not listed at
+grammar-school. For instance, he knew one Bardolph of the brazen, fiery
+nose, the tapster at the tavern. It was Bardolph who drew him out from
+under the knee and belaboring fists of one Thomas Chettle, another
+grammar-school boy, who had him down, behind High Cross in the Rother
+Market.
+
+[Illustration: "For instance, he knew one Bardolph ... the tapster at
+the tavern"]
+
+"In the devil's name," said Bardolph, setting him on his feet, "with
+your nose all gore an' never an eye you can open--what do you mean, boy,
+to be letting the like of _that_ come over you?" "That" meant Thomas
+Chettle, his fists squared, and as red as any fighting turkey, held off
+at arm's-length by Bardolph.
+
+"Come over me!" cries Will, with a rush at Thomas, head down, for all
+his being held off by Bardolph's other hand. "Who says he has come over
+me?"
+
+Now the matter stood thus. The day before, Will Shakespeare had
+followed a company of strolling mountebanks about town instead of going
+to school. And Thomas Chettle had told Schoolmaster, and he had told
+Father. When Will reached home the evening before, Dad was telling as
+much to Mother and blaming her for it. "An' Chettle's lad admits Will
+had ever rather see the swords an' hear a drum than look upon his
+lessons----"
+
+This Father was saying as Will sidled in. Will heard him say it. And so
+Thomas Chettle had to answer for it.
+
+"Come over me!" says Will to Bardolph who is holding him off and
+contemplating him, a battered wreck. "Come over me!" spitting blood and
+drawing a sleeve across his gory countenance, "I'd like to see him do
+it!" Will Shakespeare was not one to know when he was beaten.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+A year or two more, and school grew more irksome. Father fumed, and
+Mother sighed and drew Will against her knee whereon lay new little
+Sister Ann while little Sister Joan toddled about the floor. "Canst not
+seem to care for your books at all, son?" Mother asked, brushing Will's
+red brown hair out of his eyes. "Canst not see how it frets Father, who
+would have his oldest son a scholar and a gentleman?"
+
+He meant to try. But hadn't Dad himself let him off one day to tramp
+at heels after him and Uncle Henry in Arden Forest? Will Shakespeare at
+eleven is a sorry student.
+
+There comes a day when he is a big boy near thirteen years old. It is a
+time when the soft, hot winds of spring and the scent and the pulse of
+growing things get in the blood, and set one sick panting for the woods
+and the feel of the lush green underfoot and the sound of running water.
+Not that Will Shakespeare can put it into words--he only knows that when
+the smell of the warm, newly turned earth comes in at the schoolroom
+window and the hum of a wandering bee rises above the droning of the
+lesson, he lolls on the hacked and ink-stained desk and gazes out at
+the white clouds flecking the blue, and all the truant blood in his
+sturdy frame pulls against his promises.
+
+Then at length comes a day when the madness is strong upon him and he
+hides his books, his Cato's _Maxims_, or perchance his _Confabulationes
+Pueriles_, under the garden hedge, and skirting the town, makes his way
+along the river. And there, hidden among the willows and green alders
+and rustling sedge, he spends the morning; and when in the heat of the
+day the fish refuse to nibble, he takes his hunk of bread out of his
+pocket and lies on his back among the rushes, while lazy dreams flit
+across his consciousness as the light summer clouds rock mistily across
+the blue.
+
+[Illustration: "Hidden among the willows ... he spends the morning"]
+
+And, the wandering madness still upon him, in the afternoon he skirts
+about and tramps toward Shottery. It is no new thing to go to Shottery
+with or without Mother for a day at the Hathaways'. There always has
+been rebellion in the blood of Will Shakespeare, and there is a slender,
+wayward, grown-up somebody at Shottery who understands. Ann Hathaway has
+stayed often in Stratford with the Shakespeare household. Mother loves
+Ann; Father teases and twits her; the young men, swains and would-be
+sweethearts, swarm about her like bumblebees about the honeysuckle at
+the garden gate.
+
+And when she is there, Will himself seldom leaves her side. He has oft
+been a rebellious boy, whereat Mother has sighed and Father has sworn;
+but Ann, staying with them, and she alone, has laughed. She has
+understood.
+
+And there have been times when this tall brown-haired young person has
+seized his hand, as if she too had moments of rebellion, and the two
+have run away--away from the swains and the would-be sweethearts, the
+Latin grammar and the scoldings, to wander about the river banks and the
+lanes.
+
+[Illustration: "The two have run away ... to wander about the river
+banks."]
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+So this afternoon Will tramped off to Shottery. There was a
+consciousness in the back of his mind of wonderful leafiness and
+embowering, of vines and riotous bloom about Ann's home. He opened the
+wicket and trudged up the path, and peered in at the open door. Ann,
+within the doorway, saw him. She looked him in the eye, then up at the
+sun yet high in the sky, and laughed. And he knew she understood
+it--truancy.
+
+[Illustration: "He ... trudged up the path and peered in at the open
+door"]
+
+Perhaps she understood more than the fact, perhaps she understood the
+feeling. She threw her work aside, needle stuck therein, and clapped a
+wide straw hat upon her head and taking his hand dragged him down the
+path and out the gate and away--along the Evesham road.
+
+But she lectured him nevertheless, this red-cheeked boy with the full as
+yet undisciplined young mouth and the clear, warm hazel eyes.
+
+"You tell me that I, too, throw my work down and run away? Ay, Will,
+there's that hot blood within me that sweeps me out every now and then
+from within tame walls and from stupid people, and makes me know it is
+true, the old tale of some wild, gypsy blood brought home by a soldier
+Hathaway for wife. But there is this difference, if you please, sir;
+I throw down my work because I have fought my fight and conquered it, am
+mistress of what I will in my household craft. Think you that I love the
+molding of butter and the care of poultry, or to spin, to cut, to sew,
+because I do them and do them well? It is not the thing I love, Will--it
+is in the victory I find the joy. I would conquer them to feel my power.
+Conquer your book, Will, stride ahead of your class, then play your fill
+till they arrive abreast of you again. But a laggard, a stupid, or a
+middling! And, in faith, the last is worst."
+
+They walked along, boy and young woman, she musing, he looking up with
+young ardor into her face. "You--you are so beautiful, Ann," the boy
+blurted forth, "and--and--no one understands as you do."
+
+She laid a hand on his shoulder and turned her dark eyes upon him.
+Teasing eyes they could be and mocking, yet sweet, too. Ah, sweet and
+tender through their laughter!
+
+"Shall I tell you why I understand, Will Shakespeare, child?" Was she
+talking altogether to the boy, or above his head--aloud--as to herself?
+"I am a woman, Will, and at nineteen most such are already wife and
+mother, and I am still unwed. Shall I tell you why? We are but souls
+wandering and lonely in the dark, Will, other souls everywhere
+around, but scarce a groping hand that ever meets or touches our
+outstretched own. In all life we feel one such touch, perchance, or two.
+The rest we know no more than if they were not there. My father, great,
+simple, countryman's soul, I knew, Will, and Mary Shakespeare I know.
+Would she might learn she could do more with John through laughter, dear
+heart; but the right is ever stronger with Mary than the humor of the
+thing. My father and Mary I have known. And you, you I knew when in your
+rage you fell upon the maid, baby that you were at five, and beat her
+with your fists because she wantonly swept your treasures--a rose
+petal, a beetle wing, a pebble, a feather--into her kitchen fire. I knew
+you then, for so I had been beating at fate my life long. I knew you,
+Will, and, dear child, always since I have watched and understood. Rebel
+if you will; be free; but to be free, forget not, is to be conqueror
+over that within self first."
+
+Will caught her hand; he whispered; his voice burned hot with a child's
+jealousy.
+
+"'Tis said you are to wed Abraham Stripling, Ann, an' that the foreign
+doctor who wants to wed you, broke Abra'm's head with his pestle."
+
+Ann Hathaway laughed; her eyes were mocking now; she backed against
+the lichened trunk of a giant elm by the roadside, a young, beauteous
+thing, and looked at the boy in scorn. "I to marry Abraham Stripling!
+Child though you are, you know me better than that. Did I not just tell
+you I am free now--free? That I have held fast to my duty, and so come
+to where I might be free? Have held them at bay--family, cousins,
+elders, sweethearts--until now, the rest married and gone, and the tasks
+as they gave them up come to be mine, my mother needs me, and my life
+may be my own--and free. For who has come to wed me? Did I not just say
+I was--I am--free? A soul groping lonely in the dark? No man's hand has
+reached toward mine that I, a woman and a weakling, could not shake off.
+When the masterful hand, groping, seizes mine, I shall know it, and I--I
+will kiss it with my lips--and--and follow after."
+
+[Illustration: "'When the masterful hand, groping, seizes mine, I shall
+know it'"]
+
+She came back to him as one from an ecstasy. "And now, child, go on
+home. It is late. And hurry or Mary will be fretting. You have had your
+cake and eaten it. Now go pay for it. 'Discipline must be maintained,'
+says your Welsh schoolmaster. And sure he will flog you."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+But no one at home had missed him. The Henley Street house was full of
+hurry and confusion when he arrived. No one noticed him. The neighbors
+came in and out, Mistress Sadler and Mistress Snelling, and the foreign
+doctor who would like to wed Ann, or passed on up to a room above, where
+little sister Annie, named for Ann Hathaway, lay dying of a sudden
+croup. And all since morning, since Will stole away.
+
+He knows this thing called Life, this deep inbreathing, this joy of
+shout, of run, of leap, of vault. He knows--strong healthy young
+animal--he knows this thing. But the other--this strange thing called
+Death: the darkened room; Father with his head fallen on his breast
+standing at the lattice gazing out at nothing; Mother kneeling, one arm
+outstretched across the bed, her head fallen thereon, and Mistress
+Sadler trying to raise and lead her away; and this--this waxen whiteness
+framed in flaxen baby rings on the pillow--this little stiffening hand
+outside the linen cover?
+
+Will Shakespeare cries out. He has touched little sister Annie's hand
+and it is cold.
+
+[Illustration: "This strange thing called Death...."]
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+And after that, things went worse in the Shakespeare household. All of
+John Shakespeare's ventures were proving failures. Debt pressed on every
+side. There began talk again of a mortgage on the Asbies estate, and
+this time none could say nay.
+
+Dad went about with his head sunk on his breast, and at home sat staring
+in moody silence.
+
+[Illustration: "Dad ... sat staring in moody silence"]
+
+"Don't, Mary, don't," he would say to Mother, putting her hand on his
+shoulder. "Take the children away. Instead of the name their father
+would have left them, 'John Shakespeare, Gentleman,' they are to read
+it--what?"
+
+"John, John," said Mother, "is there no more then in it all--our love,
+our lives--than pride?"
+
+Pride! Will Shakespeare by now knew what it meant, and his heart went
+out to his father. He had felt the sting of this thing himself. It had
+been the year before. Dad had taken him behind him on his horse to
+Kenilworth, to see the masks and fireworks given by the Earl of
+Leicester in the Queen's honor. The gay London people come down with the
+court had sat in stands and galleries to witness the spectacle of the
+water pageant, breathing their perfumed breath down upon the country
+people crowding the ground below. And Will Shakespeare among these, at
+sight of the great Queen, had cheered with a lusty young throat and
+thrown his cap up with the rest. Will Shakespeare was the once chief
+bailiff's son. He was the son of Mary Arden of the Asbies. Though he
+never had thought about it one way or another, he had always known
+himself as good as the best.
+
+And so at Kenilworth, standing with the crowd and looking up at the
+jeweled folk in fine array casting their jokes and gibes down at the
+trammel, he had laughed, too, as honest as any. But when the time came
+for the water pageant, Dad had given him a lift up and a boost to the
+branches of a tree. And he had heard what she said, the lady upon whom
+he had from the first fixed his young gaze, the dark lady, with the
+jewels in her dusky hair, breathing lure and beauty and glamour. As he
+straddled the limb of his high perch that brought him so near her, he
+heard her cry out, her head thrown backward on her proud young throat:
+"Ah, the little beast, bringing the breath of the rabble up to our
+nostrils."
+
+And it was something like to what burned in young Will Shakespeare's
+soul then that Dad was feeling now. Will, big boy that he was, laid a
+hand on Dad's hand. Father looked up; their eyes met.
+
+Dad threw an arm about his shoulder and drew him close--father and son.
+
+Something passed from the older to the younger. The boy squared his
+shoulders. The man in Will Shakespeare was born.
+
+How best could he help Dad? So the lad pondered, meanwhile digging the
+sense piecemeal out of his _Ovid_ for the morrow's lesson.
+
+"_It is the mind that makes the man, and our
+strength--measure--vigor_"--any one of the three words would do--"_our
+measure is in our immortal souls_."
+
+Why--why is there truth in books? Had Ovid lived and been a man, a man
+who knew and fought it out himself?
+
+Will Shakespeare caught sight of a great and glorious kingdom he had not
+visioned before. The schoolmaster hitherto had talked in riddles.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+Yet a year after this Will Shakespeare, just awakened to a love of
+letters, threw his books down. Mother's brown hair, as she leaned over
+her new child, Edmund, showed lines of gray. Dad, the day's trade over,
+sat brooding at home, and scarce would hie him forth, the fear of
+process for debt hanging over him.
+
+Tall sturdy Will Shakespeare could buy up cattle and trade for hides as
+well as the butcher's son in Rother Market. Will Shakespeare threw down
+his books and went forth into the world--a man.
+
+[Illustration: "Tall, sturdy Will Shakespeare could buy up cattle ... as
+well as the butcher's son"]
+
+A man? A man, yes; once his stripling days of hot blood are over, days
+of rustic rout, of fight and wrestle, of deer-stealing, of wanderings
+with strolling players; a man, husband to Ann Hathaway, father of
+children, son of Mary Arden of the Asbies, Gentlewoman--of John
+Shakespeare, failure, who would be Gentleman; a man, this William
+Shakespeare, gone up to London to do a part in the world. In the world?
+This world wherein all is gain and nothing loss, does one but make it
+so; all is garnering; all is treasure; all, if so one deem it, is
+pageant, poetry, and drama; the rustic, the maid, the gammer, the
+tapster, the schoolboy, the master; the lubberfolk, the witch, the
+fairy, the elf, the goblin; the fat woman of Brentford, the man dwelling
+by the churchyard, Snelling, Sadler, Bardolph, Clowder, the old dog; the
+mummer, the wait, the revel, the cates and ale, the player strutting the
+stage as Herod; the sheep-shearing, the pedler, the glove; the white
+rose and the red; the Princes in the tower; St. George and victory;
+king, knight, soldier; the Avon sweetly flowing in its banks; the
+forest; the clouds rocking across the blue; stripling; the foreign
+doctor; queen, courtier, lady; love, life, death; hope, struggle,
+despair; pride, ambition, failure; vision, striving, achievement;
+wisdom, philosophy, contemplation; into the world where all is gain and
+nothing loss, does one make it so, went William Shakespeare of
+Stratford, to conquer.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Warwickshire Lad, by George Madden Martin
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WARWICKSHIRE LAD ***
+
+***** This file should be named 27187.txt or 27187.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/1/8/27187/
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Martin Pettit and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Kentuckiana Digital Library)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/27187.zip b/27187.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..16dd505
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27187.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..01f6f6d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #27187 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27187)