As I have writ before, Paws [St Paul’s] is the church wherein the citie’s soul is lodged.
Folks go there to hear sermons, pick pockets, hide from any they owe money, see where the corpses of great folks are laid, beg alms, and shelter from the rain. There’s a brewhouse and a bakehouse not far off, for refreshments.
But what takes most folks to Paws daily is the love of newes. That’s what’s traded there. The truths and lies that are fit to print are sold in the shops thereabouts. All other truths and lies are trafficked along Paws’ Walk.
And Picker and Stealer told me they’d conveyed the papers they stole from Snakes-Purr into a corner of Paws.
They’d hid them in a hole behind one of the little houses wherein the corpses of fine folks are lodged. They sayt they’d been sleeping on them. That had served to flat them, and keep all safe from rats and mice.
They told me that when next the weather proved fair, I must meet them in Paws’ yard by day. We would slip in through the north door, and they would show me where to conceal myself. At night, when all was quiet, I could survey the papers.
I durst not say, No. That is not a word to be used to Picker and Stealer.
In truth, I did not want to see the papers. I was afeared to go to Paws by day, because the place would be throng with idle folks and their dogs. And I did not know which door was north.
But I kept my thoughts well-hid, and offered their ladyships many assurances of my gratitude.
How I cursed the day our mother made us innocent kitlings swear vengeance on Snakes-Purr!
Sure, my uppish sister had forgot her vow, and only the Queen Cat of Heaven knew where my brother and my other sisters were. Which of us now remained with no choice but to consort with thieves and players? Me.
And who, having endured the terrors of the Tower, must now prepare to crouch among the dead folks and endure the terrors of Paws? Me.
So, after a perilous journey too tedious to recount here (dogs, wicked children, a law skoller with a pistol) that was where I came to rest.
Chill and cramped, hating all, and hearing strange snips of newes from the folks that passed by my hiding place.
Who was in, who out. Who was wedded, who bedded. Who sought a place, and who had found one. Who was come from their travels; who was about to set forth.
I even heard tell of a man who’d lived for many years among the black folks in Africk. They’d never seen a white man before. (Belike they thought he’d been peeled like an orringe.)
This man saw herds of beasts like horses, streaked with colours. And great apes, very strong, though they eat only of fruits and the like. And crockerdills that will pull anything they choose into the water for their dinner.
I might have heard more, but others came by talking of politicks. And trouble in Ireland. (Why was that newes?)
Sure, they do not clack half so much in the King’s parlement.
At last all was quiet.
Then Picker and Stealer took me further into Paws, and bade me stand watch while they brought the papers from their hiding place. They set them before me.
In truth, I knew not what to say. Some were writ clean and fair, but others had blotted lines and scratchings.
A few, I think, were pieces of a play. (I’d never seen the pages players learn their words from, but I had seen printed playbooks.)
Others (I thought) were verses, but I could scarce make out a line. They were writ in a penman’s hand. Not a lord’s, like mine.
I sat there with my paws folded, wishing to seem skoller-like and fearing to seem fool.
“Well?” arrkst Stealer, hopeful. “Have we owt that may cause Snakes-Purr to be hanged?”
Poor Harry. I can’t read “a penman’s hand” i.e. secretary script, either. Harry, like his mother and Gib before her, writes in italic script, the precursor of our modern handwriting. Here’s a page with reminders of the difference: click on its links for the Secretarie Alphabete and Italic Hand to see how each looks.
I admit to having been sceptical about the ability of cats to steal several bundles of papers, but an internet search revealed a few instances of modern cats stealing newspapers. This brief clip of one in action convinced me. (I think the ad at the start of the video is longer than the cat action.)
The Earl of Southampton's Cat 
They’d never read my handwriting, either. Perhaps I should go back to that, just to lessen my chances of being hanged.
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You can’t be too careful in this day and age, Mick. Especially if you’ve upset a cat.
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Exactly.
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You’ve got me clicking on cat videos now. Worse, you’ve got me clicking on cat videos that won’t play in my part of the world. Never mind.
Harry’s feeling a bit sorry for himself, but I don’t suppose that consorting with Picker and Stealer is much fun.
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Try this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25MhxADTtbg The cat in question is a New Zealander, but the video went viral (as they say). Clearing a fence with a tabloid in your mouth takes some doing.
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That’s brilliant. We used to have a dog who insisted on walking home from the paper shop with the paper in his mouth, but he was an alsation, and the rolled up paper fitted in his mouth, The cat is in a different league.
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The moment is at hand! I’m excited even though Harry’s attempt to get my sympathy was pathetic.
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Harry’s had a chip on his shoulder pretty much from birth, I think.
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It might as well be hieroglyphics. I wonder if it would be as hard to understand their spoken word?
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I suspect they’d understand us better than we could understand them. That’s because regional accents would have differed a lot in those days, and everyone would have had some sort of an accent. So their ears would have been better attuned than ours are to a variety of accents and dialects. They were probably more patient listeners than we are, too.
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Even these days I suspect regional accents might vary widely in places like Scotland, where the extremes seem more extreme. Cities have probably made things more homogenous, both then and now, but a big city back then would likely be a moderate town these days.
I was reading a discussion on another forum that suggested what we think of the English accent these days might not have been the accent way back when. That it was actually taught in elite schools like Eton to help the elite identify each other. They suggest the accent in old, more isolated settlements in the US might actually be more akin to how the average English fellow might have spoken back then, and the way they speak now is because the average Englishman wanted to speak like the peers of the realm.
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Yes – that sounds likely. As the modern USA was founded in the Earl of Southampton’s time, there may well be pockets where the accent would sound more familiar to him than modern English would. Aspects of American spelling and vocab certainly would be more familiar!
Way back when I studied linguistics, I learnt that speakers of the same language with different accents tend to “neutralize” their accents for ease of mutual understanding when they get together. That made sense to me, because I already knew that when I was in England or the US I spoke more slowly and carefully than I did in NZ.
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I have always been interested in handwriting and studied graphology some years back. The information on the different handwriting styles is very interesting.
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I would like to learn to read secretary script, but it seems so daunting!
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The italic script sample is beautiful. Would that my scratchings might be so elegant!
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Beautiful indeed, but it’s also the ideal. Most people’s scratchings would have fallen well short of the mark. Which is why an outstanding hand-writer could become an entertainment, and also be welcomed into espionage as …erm… a forger.
https://beforeshakespeare.com/2017/07/14/the-man-with-the-golden-pen/
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