s, of that very deer
because of which his father once got into trouble with testy old Sir
Thomas Lucy, the lord of Charlecote Manor.

The birds were his pets and playfellows. And what quantities there were
all about Stratford town! Hamnet knew their ways and their traditions.
He could tell you why the lark was hanged for treason; how the swan
celebrated its own death; how the wren came to be king of the birds; and
how the cuckoo swallowed its stepfather. He could tell you where the
nightingale and the lark sang their sweetest "tirra-lirra" in the
weir-brake below Stratford Church, and just how many thievish jackdaws
made their nests in Stratford spire. He could show you the very fallow
in which he had caught a baby lapwing scudding away with its shell on
its head, and in just what field the crow-boys had rigged up the best
kind of a "mammet" or scarecrow to frighten the hungry birds.

So, you see, little Hamnet Shakespeare could keep you interested with
his talk until it was time--if you were the tramping tinker--to toss
once more your heavy pack on your shoulders, or, if you were lordly
knight, to cry "get on" to your now rested horse. And by this time you
would have discovered that here was a boy who, with eyes to see and ears
to hear all the sights and sounds of that beautiful country about
Stratford and along the Avon's banks, had learned to find, as his
father, later on, described it:

"tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything."

A clatter of hoofs rings upon the London highway. The boy springs to his
feet; he scarcely waits to give you his hasty good-day, but with a hop,
skip, and jump, flies across the bridge and along the road. And, as he
is lifted to the saddle by the well-built, handsome man with scarlet
doublet, loose riding-cloak, white ruff, auburn hair and beard, who sits
his horse so well, you know that father and son are riding home
together, and that there will be joy in the little house in Henley
Street. For Master William Shakespeare, the London player, has come from
town to spend a day at home in the Stratford village he loved so dearly.

Perhaps, two or three years later, you may be led again to tramp or ride
through Stratford town. As you loiter awhile at the Bear Tavern, near
the Clopton Bridge, you recognize the arches and the pleasant river that
flows beneath them, and then you remember the little boy with whom you
talked on the bridge.