The Late Mr Shakespeare Read Online Free

stream runs straight. If he opened it full it would bring the mill down. So he opens it half, and the water flows through, the green water, and round and round the wheel goes, and the chalky walls shake and you can smell the flour fly, the oatmeal in the air, in the low gloom, though it’s a long while now since they bore sacks up the thin stair, spread corn to warm on the worn stones, lit the fire under, and let the wind spin the chimney as it would. When you look up it still moves slightly, that chimney, then the whole twisted roof moves, and you’re lost. Have you noticed millers always have bad breath?
    Now when young Mr John Shakespeare was first making his way in the butchery business, the miller in that mill had a beautiful daughter. She had long, silky hair and her lips pressed together like two red rose petals. Her name was Juliet, wouldn’t you know. John and Juliet did not marry because their fathers spoilt it. How did they spoil it? By plotting matrimony.
    â€˜Listen, John,’ said his father to him, ‘I want you to marry the miller’s daughter.’
    â€˜Juliet, listen,’ her father said to her, ‘I want you to make a good catch for yourself – that John Shakespeare, the butcher boy, for instance.’
    â€˜Speak nicely to her,’ said Shakespeare’s father’s father.
    â€˜Be agreeable to the man,’ commanded the miller.
    Next day the would-be lovers met.
    â€˜Mr Shagsper,’ said Juliet, ‘my father told me to marry you.’
    â€˜Is that so?’ said John Shakespeare. ‘Well, in that case I think we should sleep together first to find out if we’re suited.’
    The miller’s daughter did not demur or delay. That night they lay together in her bed above the mill wheel. The air was salty with flour. His eyes pricked. She gnawed her lower lip in the blue darkness.
    â€˜Mr Shagsper,’ she whispered at last.
    â€˜Yes, my love?’ John whispered back.
    â€˜Did you come round the mill pond by the dovecots?’ Juliet asks him.
    â€˜Yes, my darling,’ John says, panting.
    â€˜And did you notice a great big heap of dung under the wall?’ asks Juliet.
    â€˜I did,’ John Shakespeare answers, somewhat surprised by the question.
    â€˜Well,’ says Juliet, ‘that’s mine.’
    â€˜Yours?’ John Shakespeare said.
    â€˜I did it,’ Juliet told him, ‘every bit.’
    The miller’s daughter was a lovely lovely creature, but she did have the one shortcoming which makes me glad she was not our hero’s mother – she lacked conversation.

Chapter Five
How to spell Shakespeare and what a whittawer is
    So Mr John Shakespeare married Mary Arden—
    But before we get into that I’d better say something about the way Juliet the miller’s daughter said the family name.
    Shakespeare is a not uncommon surname in Warwickshire and the counties round about, along with little variations on its martial music: Shakelaunce and Brislelaunce, Lycelance and Breakspear. One of the tribe last-named, Nicholas Breakspear, even became Pope, the only Englishman to have sunk so low, calling himself Hadrian IV when he sat down in the papal chair.
    What the miller’s daughter said – Shagsper – is just one possible spelling and pronunciation of the name. Both in Stratford and in London people say it variously, and I have come across it in many different forms. Here are a few of them:
    Shakaspeare
Shakespey
Shakstaff
Shakispeare
Shaxpur
Shakeshaft
Shakyspeare
Sakesper
Sacaspeer
Shakespire
Shaxberd
Sakeespeer
Shakespeier
Shexper
Shakeschafte
Sakespeier
Schacosper
Shakespere
Saxpey
Scakespeire
Shaxber
Saksper
Saxper
Shakespaye
Sakspere
Saxberd
Schakkyspare
Shagspere
Schaftspere
Shakespur
Shaxbere
Chacsper
Shakespure
Shagspare
Saxshaffte
Shaxpay
Shaxpear
Chacspeire
Chacsberde
Saxpar
Sacksper
Sexper
Shakesbear
Shakesides
Shagstuft
Shuckspere
Shagsshaft
Sexspear
    The saying and the spelling being