Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare | Page 6

been daily trodden
on! O, sir, look you!--but let me cover my eyes! Look at his lips!
Gracious Heaven! they were not thus when he entered. They are
blacker now than Harry Tewe's bull- bitch's!"
Master Silas did lift up his eyes in astonishment and wrath; and his

worship, Sir Thomas, did open his wider and wider, and cried by fits
and starts:-
"Gramercy! true enough! nay, afore God, too true by half! I never saw
the like! Who would believe it? I wish I were fairly rid of this
examination,--my hands washed clean thereof! Another time,-- anon!
We have our quarterly sessions; we are many together. At present I
remand--"
And now, indeed, unless Sir Silas had taken his worship by the sleeve,
he would may-hap have remanded the lad. But Sir Silas, still holding
the sleeve and shaking it, said, hurriedly, -
"Let me entreat your worship to ponder. What black does the fellow
talk of? My blood and bile rose up against the rogue; but surely I did
not turn black in the face, or in the mouth, as the fellow calls it?"
Whether Master Silas had some suspicion and inkling of the cause or
not, he rubbed his right hand along his face and lips, and, looking upon
it, cried aloud, -
"Ho, ho! is it off? There is some upon my finger's end, I find. Now I
have it,--ay, there it is. That large splash upon the centre of the table is
tallow, by my salvation! The profligates sat up until the candle burned
out, and the last of it ran through the socket upon the board. We knew it
before. I did convey into my mouth both fat and smut!"
"Many of your cloth and kidney do that, good Master Silas, and make
no wry faces about it," quoth the youngster, with indiscreet merriment,
although short of laughter, as became him who had already stepped too
far and reached the mire.
To save paper and time, I shall now, for the most part, write only what
they all said, not saying that they said it, and just copying out in my
clearest hand what fell respectively from their mouths.
SIR SILAS.
"I did indeed spit it forth, and emunge my lips, as who should not?"
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
"Would it were so!"
SIR SILAS.
"WOULD IT WERE SO! in thy teeth, hypocrite!"
SIR THOMAS.
"And, truly, I likewise do incline to hope and credit it, as thus
paraphrased and expounded."

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
"Wait until this blessed day next year, sir, at the same hour. You shall
see it forth again at its due season; it would be no miracle if it lasted.
Spittle may cure sore eyes, but not blasted mouths and scald
consciences."
SIR THOMAS.
"Why! who taught thee all this?"
Then turned he leisurely toward Sir Silas, and placing his hand
outspreaden upon the arm of the chaplain, said unto him in a low,
judicial, hollow voice, -
"Every word true and solemn! I have heard less wise saws from
between black covers."
Sir Silas was indignant at this under-rating, as he appeared to think it,
of the church and its ministry, and answered impatiently, with Christian
freedom, -
"Your worship surely will not listen to this wild wizard in his
brothel-pulpit!"
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
"Do I live to hear Charlecote Hall called a brothel-pulpit? Alas, then, I
have lived too long!"
SIR SILAS.
"We will try to amend that for thee."
William seemed not to hear him, loudly as he spake and pointedly unto
the youngster, who wiped his eyes, crying, -
"Commit me, sir! in mercy commit me! Master Ephraim! Oh, Master
Ephraim! A guiltless man may feel all the pangs of the guilty! Is it you
who are to make out the commitment? Dispatch! dispatch. I am
a-weary of my life. If I dared to lie, I would plead guilty."
SIR THOMAS.
"Heyday! No wonder, Master Ephraim, thy entrails are moved and
wamble. Dost weep, lad? Nay, nay; thou bearest up bravely. Silas, I
now find, although the example come before me from humble life, that
what my mother said was true--'t was upon my father's demise-- 'In
great grief there are few tears.'"
Upon which did the youth, Willy Shakspeare, jog himself by the
memory, and repeat these short verses, not wide from the same purport:
"There are, alas, some depths of woe Too vast for tears to overflow."

SIR THOMAS.
"Let those who are sadly vexed in spirit mind that notion, whoever
indited it, and be men. I always was; but some little griefs have pinched
me woundily."
Master Silas grew impatient, for he had ridden hard that morning, and
had no cushion upon his seat, as Sir Thomas had. I have seen in my
time that he who is seated on