All hopes of university gone, William Shakespeare had now to complete his education in the rough school of life. Some say he ran away from home, ashamed of his father, and worked for a man in Warwick who made fireworks and squibs. William Shakespeare's part was the selling of these fireworks. He was a good salesman too, quick in phrase, apt in gesture, not averse to disputation but stinkingly polite. We may imagine that he made his customers feel better than themselves with a little Ovid; doubtless that's the trick of it.
One day Will was hawking his fireworks as usual, in the market-place, on a flat stone under the town clock, which probably stood at five to eleven, it usually did, in those days, the sun spilling on the cobbles, white as salt, and quite a crowd gathered to watch him, from the bull ring, when the constable approaches. 'Are you selling?' says the constable. 'I am selling,' says William Shakespeare. 'Do you have a licence?' says the constable. William Shakespeare shows it to him. The constable barely looks at it. He flicks it back at our poet as though he's frightened it might scratch his eyes if he holds it too close. 'Those fireworks,' he declares, 'are wicked things, calculated to assist thieves in the night.' 'Fiddle de dee,' says young master William Shakespeare, pedlar.
Fiddle de dee is not the right thing to say to any officer. 'I pronounce them an abomination,' the constable shouts, putting his face down next to Shakespeare's. 'Sixpence,' says Will, 'to you, comrade.' The constable seizes him by the scruff of the neck, kicks his squibs into the gutter, and hauls him off before the magistrate.
This magistrate, whose name was Sir Thomas Lucy, will figure again in our story, so I'd better describe him. He was a silly, short man who always powdered his cheeks. He's not pleased to see Shakespeare, having seen more than enough of his father (though not in the sense that Emma Careless had, of course). The beak's temper does not improve when he hears what the boy has been up to. 'Those fireworks,' he opines, 'ought not to have been invented. You are a scoundrel, sir, to be endangering life and limb by selling them in a public place. How would you feel,' he adds, 'if a child took it into his head to play with one of them, and caught fire, and burnt to death?'
Shakespeare thinks carefully. He likes riddles. He is not good at them, but he still likes them. He stands on his head to warm his wits in the corner. He hums and he haws a while, playing on his lips with his forefinger.
'Come, sir,' Lucy the magistrate thunders (or, more probably, squeaks). 'My question is clear enough, is it not? How would you feel if a child burnt to death because of one of your wicked fireworks?'
'Regretful,' says Shakespeare.
'How dare you!' cries the beak.
Shakespeare supposes that he has made (and not for the first time) an incorrect response. 'Mortified,' he suggests, while the beak's face grows longer and blanker, and flakes of powder peel off with his sweat. 'My heart would cool with mortifying groans,' adds Shakespeare, placatingly, or so he trusts.
'The lad's a monster,' says the constable. 'He ought to be in jail, the dirty incinerate, and that's the long and short of it.'
'Hold hard,' protests Shakespeare. 'All I have done is sell a few squibs and dragons at a bob a nob.'
'Trmph,' troats Sir Thomas, 'then you plead guilty, do you? A month!'
Shakespeare goes green. 'Are you sending me to prison?' he enquires.
'That I am, sir,' the magistrate confirms. 'A month's worth. To mend your ways. I hope you see, by the grace of God, their error.'
'It's you that's full of error,' Will says. 'I am sound.'
'Two months!' says Thomas Lucy.
Will shuts his mouth.
In Warwick Jail young William Shakespeare associated with the rest. If he had been inclined to turn thief, he once told me, he had plenty of opportunities and offers of instruction. The separate or silent system was not then in vogue. Will worked on the tread-wheel. Most of the men who worked with him had nothing to say, the labour being arduous. But one day a new man worked with him, and this one proved different.
'Good morning,' says this stranger. 'Sir, here is my prescription for a long and happy life: Be bold, be bold, but not too bold.'
Will Shakespeare intimates by a grunt and a shake of his beardless chin that he does not understand this. The stranger marches beside him on the tread-wheel. As he marches he talks. He tells from the side of his lopsided mouth the following story:
'There was once a young lady called Lady Mary who had two brothers called Forbes and Edward. My name is Forbes. I was the elder brother! The Lady Mary, rest her soul in paradise, for she was my very sister and never a sweeter girl pulled on a pair of stockings! Attend, sir, to my tale. Our parents had been killed in the wars, for this was in a foreign country, but the new King was kind to us children and we were rich, owning houses in the north, the south, the east, and the west also. When we grew up and came of an age to know our minds we chose to spend a little of each year in each house. Thus, in spring we went to the house in the north. In summer, we went to the house in the east. In autumn, we went to the house in the south. And in winter, sir, in winter we went to the house in the west. Each house was adequate in its season. Lady Mary and my brother Edward and I were happy to travel and pleased to have four places to stay. For when one has travelled then it is good to stay, and when one has stayed a while then it is good to travel. What a satisfactory arrangement life can be! Attend, sir. I have completed the preliminaries. The story proper begins.
'The house in the west was our favourite house,' the stranger went on. 'It stood on a blue cliff overlooking the sea. One winter, as soon as we were arrived there, we decided to hold some revels to which all the people round about could come. Lady Mary penned the invitations. My brother Edward and myself saw to it that there would be plenty to eat and drink, as well as minstrels for the dancing. The guests came, sir, and a merry evening began. Among the guests one man stood out. His name was Lord Fox. He was tall and dark, with a wit like a greengage. Nobody knew much about him. He was new to the west, they said. It was clear that he was not married, and that he took a great fancy to my sister. Well he might. He danced with her till dawn, and saved all his choicest epigrams for her ears alone. Those ears were like snowballs, sir, delicate whorls of intricacy, like sliced snowballs, or mushrooms opened for the inspection of an elf. They were surpassed only by the beauty of her navel, though I say it myself. Be that as it may, the Lady Mary, my sister, was charmed by the company of Lord Fox. She was charmed, sir, and Edward was charmed, and I, Forbes, was charmed also. We were all well charmed.'
The stranger trod the wheel in silence for a while. Then he went on.
'Lord Fox came back,' he said. 'Lord Fox came back again and again to the house on the cliff. It was a very strange thing, as my sister the Lady Mary soon noticed, but we never needed to send him an invitation. I had only to mention his name to Edward, or Edward had only to say something to me about him, and there he would be, strolling towards us across the lawns in sunlight peeling off his elegant black mittens or leaning in the doorway toying with the hilt of his sword, nodding and smiling and wishing us good day. As for my sister herself, she had only to think of Lord Fox, and lo, he appeared. He dined with us, hunted with us, sailed with us in the bright bay and went with us for long walks on the shore looking for shells and starfish, which latter he likened I remember to the dropped gloves of angels. His supply of amusing remarks was endless. He seemed to have been everywhere and done most things. For all that, he remained what one of your chapbook writers would call a somewhat mysterious personage. Edward and I never quite found out from his conversation who he was or where he came from - and he avoided our questions on points like these by telling us new stories, always so interesting and extraordinary that we quite forgot he had not answered us until later, when we began to feel unsatisfied and uneasy that we knew so little about him. But our sister, the Lady Mary, did not let such matters bother her. She found Lord Fox the most enchanting person she had ever met, and she was always asking him to visit our house on the cliff.'