‘I could go cross-country and avoid Carlisle.’
‘Too many big rivers to cross. I was up there twenty years back. You'll have to use the fords or the bridges, and that means you'll be noticed and talked-of – a young boy alone.’
‘I'll manage,’ I said; ‘if need be, I'll swim.’
‘Now don't try that on – might as well be hanged as drowned.’
That annoyed me, because I can swim as well as anyone. Some people think, because I'm not very big, that I'm not strong. I've swum miles in Derwentwater in my time.
‘I'll be all right, Mr. Burney,’ I said. ‘I don't think I'd better tell you my plans, had I? Then, if anyone asks you, you won't have to tell them any lies, will you?’ And with that I said good morning, all very dignified, and walked off. I didn't like to admit that I still hadn't any plans. I began to look around the market in the hopes of finding some travelling merchant who wanted a handy boy to help with his pack-horses. I thought I'd get out of Penrith more easily if I mixed myself up with a party, instead of travelling alone.
It wasn't so easy. I asked one man, and he snapped my head off. I asked another. No luck. The third man said more kindly:
‘No; and if I wanted a boy I could have made my pick of dozens, every day I've travelled along the road. The country's crawling with them, all looking for work that isn't there. Take my advice, lad, and go back home.’
‘I can't,’ I said; ‘I'm an orphan.’
‘They're all orphans,’ answered the merchant, and I could see he hadn't believed me. He turned away to sell a roll of green Kendal cloth to a parson's wife.
Outside one of the big inns there was a fat man wearing an old-fashioned helmet and beating a little drum that made everyone laugh: it looked so silly bobbing there against his immense belly. He stopped beating it after a moment, and looked round with a good-natured grin and began to speak. He had a wonderful voice, clear as a bell, and you could hear every word, even above the bleating of sheep, the shouting of the cheapjacks, and all the other hundred noises of market-day.
The famous London play-actors were here, he said, about to act one of the finest plays every written – the tragical history of King Richard the Third. They were doing it out of special compliment to the good people of Penrith – hadn't the wicked hunch-back usurper once lived in a house yonder, within a stone's throw of this spot; nay, within a strong man's spit? Wouldn't Penrith people like to see Richard again, as large as life, played by a London actor who had performed before Queen Elizabeth, supported by a full London company with drums, trumpets, and everything proper, regardless of expense? Admission one penny; stools to sit on, a penny extra. Starting now, in the inn-yard.
I was one of the first to pay my penny.
I wanted something to take my mind off homesickness and the fear of death or prison. So in I went – yes, and paid another penny for a stool to rest my weary bones, and yet another penny (reckless extravagance!) for a portion of hot roast mutton on a skewer. Wasn't it good to taste cooked food again!
By now the inn-yard was fairly crowded, and there were people filling the upper galleries all round, which led to the bedrooms. The players had rigged up a platform on trestles at one end of the yard, and we all moved round, some of us with our stools, but most of the people standing. I'd finished my mutton and licked my greasy fingers when suddenly I got a shock which turned the good food over inside me.
Sir Philip Morton was coming through the archway into the yard.
He paused to give his penny to the man, and I saw his lean face sideways, with the little golden beard springing from the cruel under-lip, and the blue eyes so cold and insolent.
‘And we'll have stools, my man, on the stage. What? No stools allowed on the stage? Absurd! Too poky, I suppose. Very well.’ He turned and waved a gloved hand towards my corner of the yard. ‘Put me two over there, then.’
I thought I was done for.
There was only the one archway leading from the yard, and Sir Philip stood there, ordering wine. I could not pass him, but if I stayed where I was he would come and sit down almost beside me.
I looked round like a fox trapped on a ledge. Then I thought of the galleries.
A staircase rose close behind me. If I went up there I might find some other way out, or at any rate I might be able to lie hidden in some room till the play was over.
Without wasting any more time, I slipped off my stool and up that staircase. The gallery was already crowded with people, ready settled to see the play. One way they were so thickly packed that I couldn't push quickly through without starting an uproar, which was the last thing I wanted to do. The other way there weren't so many. Just then I heard Sir Philip's voice on the stairs:
‘We should see better up here, Roger, and we shouldn't get our toes trodden on by these clodhopping shepherds.’
‘Just as you like, Phil.’
I didn't wait for more. There was a curtained doorway at the end of the gallery, and I made for it, stumbling over people's heels and mumbling my apologies.
‘Hey! you there, boy!’
That was Sir Philip's voice from the top of the stairs. He'd seen me. I rushed on, flung out my hand to part the curtain.
‘Stop that boy!’ he shouted.
I heard the people behind me cursing heartily at being disturbed when the play was about to begin. I hurled myself through the curtain, round the corner of a dark landing, and down a staircase. I found myself in the midst of a crowd of feverishly excited people – I was in the actors' dressing-room.
A boy was being helped into an immense hooped skirt, the fat man was grumbling because his armour would not meet round the back, a tall, gloomy young man was reciting lines to himself in a thin, birdlike voice….This much I had time to take in before the fat man bellowed at me:
‘Who are you? What do you want? Get out of here! We're ready to go on, and I will not have outsiders behind the scene. Vanish, before I rend you limb from limb!’
He was a terrifying figure. I ducked under his arm, getting no more than a glancing clout which made my head sing, and rushed round a corner into another passage. Behind me I heard him roaring:
‘What? More intruders! Out with you, sir! I don't care if you're Sir –’
‘This gentleman with me is a magistrate,’ Sir Philip cut in very icily.
I heard this all plainly, for the very good reason that I was trapped in the passage outside. There were only two doors leading from it, and they were both locked. The passage seemed to be a dumping-ground for stage properties and costumes.
I thought wildly for a moment of disguising myself in one of these costumes – a woman's spreading skirts would have been the best concealment – but I realized that the actors would give me away at once.
‘My friend is a magistrate,’ Sir Philip was saying, ‘and you'll realize that, if he likes, he can forbid your play altogether and ruin your tour in this part of the country. So you'd better be civil.’
‘What do you want, sir?’ the fat man growled. I could tell he was bottling up his fury with great difficulty.
You mustn't think that I stood still, listening to their talk and doing nothing. The whole thing took only a few seconds, and I wasted none of them.
There was a big chest among the actors' properties; I suppose it was used for storing costumes when they moved from place to place. It was long, narrow, and deep. Also, it was empty and unlocked.
It was a desperate chance, but the only one. I hopped inside and pulled down the lid. As I did so I heard a trumpet sound, and a great burst of stamping and clapping in the distance. The fat man's voice sounded despairing:
‘But, gentlemen, the play's just beginning!’
‘Carry on with your play; we don't mind,’ said Sir Philip. ‘But we insist on searching these rooms.’
4. There is Safety in Coffins
I COULD hear the voice of the fat man, farther away now and muffled by the box:
‘Now is the winter of our discontent
&
nbsp; Made glorious summer by this sun of York…’
and I knew that he had gone away to take his place on the stage. There was a great hushing and shushing from the actors, and they all began to go about on tiptoe and speak in whispers. But I could distinctly hear Sir Philip and his friend questioning people and opening doors.
Would they come and examine the chest? I lay there in a hot sweat, my heart thumping away like a water-wheel. After a little while I heard the man Roger say:
‘I've asked the inn people, and they swear no one's gone out from here.’
‘And the actors say they saw him, but the idiots didn't notice where he went to! Never mind. We'll find him.’
Sir Philip sounded ready to spend the whole afternoon on his search. I heard footsteps approaching. Someone said:
‘Where's that coffin, Bob?’
‘In there. Come on.’
The footsteps stopped beside me. I almost stopped breathing. There was a grunt from Bob, whoever he was, and I felt myself swung in the air, then put down again on something that creaked.
‘It's mighty heavy,’ Bob grumbled. ‘Suppose there isn't a real body inside it?’
‘Course not. It's supposed to be empty.’
‘That it isn't, anyway. They must have left some of the props inside, ‘stead of unpacking properly. Let's throw ’em out –’
‘No, there's no time; we're wanted on the stage. Quick! sling that velvet cloth over it. Now the crown on the top – remember, it's s'posed to be Henry the Sixth inside! You take the front. Ready? Off we go.’
Again I felt myself lifted into the air, and this time I stayed there – or rather I moved rapidly forward, head first inside the chest.
‘Mind your back, sir!’ said Bob hoarsely, and I heard Sir Philip swear under his breath; I imagine someone had trodden on his toe.
The next moment I heard a high, squeaky voice reciting:
‘Set down, set down your honourable load –
If honour may be shrouded in a hearse – ’
and I knew, as I was set down on a creaking floor, that we had reached the public stage. That was my first theatrical appearance – if you can call it an appearance when you are lying in a wooden chest under a black velvet pall – and I can't say I enjoyed it.
There was a long, long speech by the squeaky voice, which was supposed to be that of the Lady Anne Somebody, but which all too clearly belonged to a boy whose voice was just breaking, for every now and again he stopped squeaking and growled like a bear for the rest of the sentence, so that some of the audience laughed when they should have been moved to tears.
At the end of this speech the men picked me up again, and for a few moments I was scared lest they should carry me off the stage, back into the danger zone; but to my relief I heard the fat man cry out in his juicy voice:
‘Stay, you that bear the corse, and set it down!’
and after a few lines of furious argument, all in verse, set it down they did, and I knew I was safe for a little longer.
It proved to be a long scene, and in my normal circumstances I should have been fidgeting, because the boy taking the Lady Anne's part was terrible. But as it was, knowing what was waiting for me behind the scenes, I wanted it to go on for hours. All too soon the Lady Anne swept off the stage, with only that sort of clapping that one gives out of kindness and charity, and a few lines later I followed her in my coffin.
‘What have they left in this box?’ grumbled the man named Bob, as they set me down with a bump behind the scenes. I heard his hand fumbling with the catch of the lid, but once more his companion saved me.
‘Don't waste time, man; we're on in the next scene as the Murderers. We've got to look sharp and change.’
‘All right, all right! What a play for a touring company! Six parts apiece, and changing your clothes as often as the Queen herself!’
There was a brief silence then, during which I could hear the actors on the stage. I strained my ears, but I couldn't detect a hint of Sir Philip's presence. Had he gone? I was glad when the man Bob settled the question by calling softly to one of his friends:
‘Where's Lord High-an'-Mighty?’
‘Oh, he cleared of – after turning everything upside-down. It's a wonder he didn't want to slit the linings of our doublets and look for the boy there.’
‘What's he want with the boy?’
‘Attempted murder. Heaved a rock at His Lordship.’
‘Don't blame him. Hope he gets away all right.’
‘He won't do that. His Lordship said he was going to comb the town for him, and set a watch on all the roads leading out of it.’
‘I see. Poor little devil hasn't a chance.’
‘Not a hope.’
A new voice cut in then, calm and matter-of-fact: ‘First and Second Murderers – ready?’
‘Ay, ay,’ said Bob, and off they went to take their cue. Murderers or monks or mourners, it was all the same to them, just a part to play. I envied them.
It was hot in the chest, but I was afraid to come out. I could never be sure, even when there was silence around me, that there wasn't at least one actor in the room. I think I would have risked it in the case of Bob, who sounded kindly and would not, perhaps, have given me away. But the others I daren't trust. So I stayed in my stifling box for the present, hoping that some means of escape would present itself eventually.
All through that hot summer's afternoon the long drama of Richard the Third unfolded itself. The trumpets sang, the drums beat, and, when there was supposed to be a battle raging off-stage, all the actors who had nothing better to do danced madly round me, yelling, stamping, and beating swords together, to sound like an army of thousands. My head ached as though it would crack. Resting as it did on the hard wood, it felt every vibration from the floor. I was nearly dead from suffocation and lack of sleep, but the row kept me fully conscious.
So Sir Philip was combing the town for me. Was going to set a watch on each of the roads leading out of it. The situation was desperate, but with each narrow escape I was getting more and more weary of the whole business. I just wanted this wild adventure to end, even if it ended in capture.
The play ended. I heard the applause of the audience, their babbling murmur as they dispersed, and the eager chatter of the players all round me. Some were discussing the takings; they sounded pleased when they heard that the doorman had collected nearly forty shillings. Others talked in lower tones, gossip and grumbles mainly – how William Desmond was too fat now to play Richard, and how bad ‘Lady Anne' was, and how somebody else was never given a proper-sized part. That sort of talk stopped suddenly when (as I guessed) the leading man came bustling in.
‘Look alive, lads!’ he said. ‘Get your things off, and pack up; the wagons are waiting. It's twenty-five miles or more to Kendal, and you know what the roads are like in this country. It'll be dark before we get there as it is.’
Kendal! A gleam of hope cut the darkness of my despair. So the actors were going straight on to Kendal that very evening? If only I could remain hidden they would carry me right through Sir Philip's cordon…. Carlisle would have been better, perhaps, but Kendal would do well enough. If I wasn't discovered…
That was too much to hope. But, perhaps, if I threw myself on their mercy, they wouldn't give me away? Sir Philip hadn't made himself popular by bursting in upon them during the play. They wouldn't be particularly anxious to do him a good turn.
On the other hand, I reminded myself, these touring actors went in mortal fear of the magistrates. They had to get permission before they could set up their stage in any town, and if they were found to be helping a criminal it was queer to think of myself as that! – they might be put out of business. Also, there might be at least one among so poverty-stricken a crew who would jump at the chance to earn a reward by betraying me to Sir Philip.
No. I wasn't going to trust these actors unless I was compelled to.
They were packing now. Boxes were bumped about, men were accusing each ot
her of borrowing and mislaying their property, and the two or three boys in the company were being chivvied around by everyone. In the middle of it all the innkeeper's wife stormed in and made a fearful to-do about a quart of ale which had been sent in but never paid for. Now the actors had changed their costumes she could not recognize the man who had ordered it, and no one would own up. I never knew how it ended. I heard a boy ask:
‘Where do these go, Mrs Desmond?’
A comfortable, motherly voice answered: ‘Oh, where there's room for ’em dearie. Usually I put ‘em in that big box we use as the coffin.’
Now for it! My heart bounded sickeningly.
‘That box is about full, if you ask me,’ Bob's voice broke in. ‘Never been unpacked. Ben and I noticed how heavy it was when –’
‘If it's ready to go,’ interrupted the fat man impatiently, ‘for goodness' sake put it on the wagon. We're late.’
‘Very well, Mr Desmond.’
Once again I felt myself swung off the ground. They carried me out into the yard; their footfalls changed suddenly from the hollowness of wooden floors to the ring of cobbles. I had an unpleasant moment or two when they tilted the chest sharply to put it on the wagon, for the top end happened to be the one where my feet were, so I was jerked back head downwards, giving my skull a nasty tap and my neck a jolt which almost dislocated it.
Still, it was worth it. It was a step nearer safety. With luck, I reckoned, I should soon be out of the zone of particular danger. I would wait till Penrith was well behind us; then, some time before we reached Kendal, I would seize my chance to come out of my stuffy tomb. I should be seen, no doubt, but I reckoned on the surprise dumbfounding them all. It would be the work of a moment to pop out of the chest, jump from the tail of the wagon, and dash into the moor beside the road. It would be twilight by then, and if any London actor could catch me in my own country, I should be interested to meet him.
The first part of my plan went excellently.
After an age, the last bundle was heaved into the wagon, and half a dozen of the players scrambled in. The driver chirruped and away we lumbered under the archway, down the street, and out of town.
Cue for Treason Page 3