“Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram;
The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun,
And with him rises weeping; these are flowers
Of middle summer."*

    Winter’s Tale.

He knew that “a lapwing runs close by the ground,” that choughs are “russet-pated.”  He knew all the beauty that is to be found throughout the country year.

Sometimes in his country wanderings Shakespeare got into mischief too.  He had a daring spirit, and on quiet dark nights he could creep silently about the woods snaring rabbits or hunting deer.  But we are told “he was given to all unluckiness in stealing venison and rabbits."* He was often caught, sometimes got a good beating, and sometimes was sent to prison.

Archdeacon Davies.

So the years passed on, and we know little of what happened in them.  Some people like to think that Shakespeare was a schoolmaster for a time, others that he was a clerk in a lawyer’s office.  He may have been one or other, but we do not know.  What we do know is that when he was eighteen he took a great step.  He married.  We can imagine him making love-songs then.  Perhaps he sang: 

    “O mistress mine, where are you roaming? 
    O, stay and hear; your true-love’s coming,
        That can sing both high and low: 
    Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
    Journeys end in lovers’ meeting;
        Every wise man’s son doth know.

    What is love? ’tis not hereafter;
    Present mirth hath present laughter;
        What’s to come is still unsure: 
    In delay there lies no plenty;
    Then come kiss me, sweet-and-twenty,
        Youth’s a stuff will not endure."*

    Twelfth Night.

The lady whom Shakespeare married was named Anne Hathaway.  She came of farmer folk like Shakespeare’s own mother.  She was eight years older than her boyish lover, but beyond that we know little of Anne Hathaway, for Shakespeare never anywhere mentions his wife.  A little while after their marriage a daughter was born to Anne and William Shakespeare.  Nearly two years later a little boy and girl came to them.  The boy died when he was about eleven, and only the two little girls, Judith and Susanna, lived to grow up.

In spite of the fact that Shakespeare had now a wife and children to look after, he had not settled down.  He was still wild, and being caught once more in stealing game he left Stratford and went to London.

Chapter XLVI SHAKESPEARE—­THE MAN