Nat Weaver said, “He lies therein, still quick I think, unless he died since last I saw him to bring him a cold supper after this mid-day, and still singing and prating gleeks he was then.”
To which I said, “The link give me, you can make a way in the dark to your own cottage, and put my hired horse by your stable and give a fodder and water also.” Which he did, went away in the dark, and I could hear him take my horse to his stable, so quiet in this night it was that stinked from soots and ashes charcoal fires. And I stood there some minutes before I went in the door from this shed with my burning link, and there was my Will, asleep on a schmutzig pallet from straw and marsh reeds on the floor, which was just dirt, not wood, asleep there until I waked him to say I come from London like he sent for by Walter.
By his shoulder I waked him with a shake, which he startled open his eyes, and blinked from the light from my burning link, and also the smoke from it which made water run from my eyes even with the door open so it should drift out. And he said, “Who's about?” and he said, always a gleek, my Will, “An' if it be the Reaper or his minion come to take me, I say you Will Kempe's yet not ready to travel with you, sirrah!”
I said, “Will, it's me, Pincus, come from London like you sent for! Oy, Will, what you done to yourself! Oy, Will!” I said, “Weh ist mir!” I said.
He said, “Sweet Pinky my pearly Jew! Why, Pinky, then all's well or soon shall be! And did you bring a purse, Pinky sweet? For the whoreson ditch-born young Walter I dispatched did take my last half-shilling for the task I charged him, and this mumble-news Nat Weaver's got all my motley Fool's garb in hand against I owe him for mean suppers and bad drink and this poor lodging's not meet for even a Turk's slave, which leaves Will Kempe with naught save what I wear and all the pain that so racks me, Pinky! Have you money in your purse, Pinky, or does Will Kempe die all unmourned a pauper in this sad-times hamlet?” And I seen by light from my burning link he was all sweats, and he groaned and shut his teeths from pains, so I knew he was bad sick, but not yet I didn't know he would starb so soon.
“I got, Will,” I said to him, “monies in our purse, and I'll pay all his reckoning, Nat Weaver, and we'll get medicines for making you well, if it's not a physician or a barber here, must be a midwife can make physics and clysters and also bleed you if you need. We'll get your cap and cape and bells and motley all in pawn from Nat Weaver and we'll go from here, you can ride the horse I hired me in London, I'll walk beside like Walter did me, we'll make us more rich and famous yet, the Morris from France over the Alp mountains to Italy we'll do still!” I said.
He didn't say nothing to me for almost minutes, closed his eyes, and then he said, “I'd counsel a wager madcap Will Kempe's danced his last jig, my Pinky.”
“Never! Don't say!” I said.
He opened then his eyes, and said, “Mayhap,” and then he said, “Can'st find me a draught of something strong, Pinky? Think you any man keeps a barrel of the Irish fire or a flagon of the Dutchman's curse? I pray you a draught, Pinky pearl, for it's all that quenches this inferno blazes in all my guts!”
To which I said, “So soon's it's morning light, Will. I'll get you a good draught to break your fast, and I'll get you medicines, and we'll go from here back to London which you shouldn't never gone from on such a long carouse with that William Bee shikker, he was bad company to keep. Oh, Will, sleep now, I'll sleep here beside you, and with morning light I'll make everything I said!”
My Will Kempe, he sighed, and closed his eyes like he was going to have a sleep, but he didn't I think, because all the night until dawn when light came in the dark shed after my link burned out, I listened to him sigh and sometimes groan and thrash his arms and legs, and roll on his pallet from pains, and I didn't also sleep almost none, listening him in his pains, my Will, smelling the big stinks from soots and ashes in the air.
With morning light he was better, I think, and I still thought he would be made well, but I was afraid because I seen in daylight how bad he was, and my business was to get him well and back to London if I could, and even so afraid I thought I could do this, which I couldn't, and he starb the next night, in my arms.
4