Chapter 3 QUEEN AND WOMAN.

"And commanded

By such poor passion as the maid that milks."

-Antony and Cleopatra.

Though Queen Elizabeth often swore at her ladies and her favorite lords, it is not to be supposed that she would ordinarily address a stranger in such terms as she used but now toward Master Marryott.16 Nor was it the surprise of finding asleep in her garden a youth, wearing an apprentice's surcoat over a gentleman's velvet doublet,-for Hal had moved in his sleep so as to disclose part of the doublet,-and silken hose, that evoked so curt an expression. Neither was it the possibility that the intruder might be another Capt. Thomas Leigh, who had been found lurking in the palace, near the door of the privy chamber, a day or two after the Essex rising, and had been subsequently put to death. Had a thought of assassination taken any root in the queen's mind at sight of the slumbering youth, she would, doubtless, have behaved as on a certain occasion at the time of the Babington conspiracy; when, walking in her garden, and being suddenly approached by one of the conspirators, and finding none of her guards within sight, she held the intruder in so intrepid a look that he shrank back-and the captain of her guard did not soon forget the rating she afterward gave him for that she had been left thus exposed. But on the present occasion she herself had petulantly ordered back the little train of gentlemen and ladies in waiting, guards, and pages, who would have followed her into the alley where she now was. They stood in separate groups, beyond the tall hedge, out of view but not out of call, and wondering what had put her majesty this morning into such a choleric desire for solitude. For that is what she was in, and what made her words to Hal so unlike those commonly used by stage royalty at the theatre.

What the devil was he doing there? Hal asked himself, as he gazed helplessly up at the queen. "I know not," he faltered. "I mean, I have no memory of coming hither. But 'tis not the first time, your majesty, I have waked up in a strange place and wondered at being there. I-I drank late last night."

He put his hand to his aching head, in a manner that unconsciously confirmed his confession; and then he looked at his coarse surcoat with an amazement that the queen could not doubt.

"What is your name?" asked the queen, who seemed to have her own reason for interrogating him quietly herself, instead of calling a guard and turning him over to some officer for examination.

"Harry Marryott, an it please your Majesty. A player in the lord chamberlain's company, though a gentleman by birth."

Elizabeth frowned slightly at the mention of the lord chamberlain's company; but a moment after, strange to say, there came into her face the sign of a sudden secret hope and pleasure.

"Being one of those players," said she, "you are well-wisher to the foolish men who partook in the late treason?" She watched narrowly for his answer.

"Not well-wisher to their treason, madam, I swear!"

"But to themselves?"

"As to men who have been our friends, we wish some of them whatever good may consist with your Majesty's own welfare, which is the welfare of England, the happiness of your subjects. But that wish makes no diminution of our loyalty, which for myself I would give my life for a chance of proving." He found it not difficult to talk to this queen, so human was she, so outright, direct, and to the point.

"Why," she replied, in a manner half careless, half significant, as if she were trying her way to some particular issue, "who knows but you may yet have that chance, and at the same time fulfil a kind wish toward one of those misguided plotters. An you were to be trusted-but nay, your presence here needs some accounting for. Dig your memory, man; knock your brains, and recall how you came hither. Tis worth while, youth, for you doubtless know what is supposed of men found unaccountably near our person, and what end is made of them."

Hal was horrified and heartstricken. "Madam," he murmured, "if my queen, who is the source and the object of all chivalrous thoughts in every gentleman's breast in England, one moment hold it possible that I am here for any purpose against her, let me die! Call guards, your Majesty, and have me slain!"

"Nay," said Elizabeth, convinced and really touched by his feeling, "I spoke not of what I thought, but of what others might infer. Now that I perceive your quality, it hath come to me that you might serve me in a business that needs such a man,-a man not known at court, and whom it would appear impossible I could have given audience to. Indeed, I was pondering on the difficulty of finding such a man in the time afforded, and in no very sweet humor either, when the sight of you broke in upon my thoughts."

"To serve your Majesty in any business would be my supremest joy," said Hal, eagerly-and truly. His feeling in this was that of all young English gentlemen of his time.

"But this tells me not how came you into my private garden," said her Majesty.

"I remember some dispute at the Devil tavern," replied Harry, searching his memory. "And roaming the streets with one Captain Bottle, and being chased out of some neighborhood or other-and there I lose myself. It seems as if I went lugging forward through the streets, holding to an arm on either side, and then plunged quite out of this world, into cloud, or blackness, or nothing. Why, it is strange-meseems yonder workman, at the end of this alley, had some part in my goings last night."

The workman was a carpenter, engaged in erecting a wooden framework for an arched hedge that was to meet at right angles the alley in which the queen and Harry were. The man's work had brought him but now into their sight.

The queen, who on occasion could be the most ceremonial monarch in Christendom, could, when necessary, be the most matter-of-fact. She now gave a "hem" not loud enough for her unseen attendants to hear, but sufficient to attract the carpenter's attention. He stood as if petrified, recognizing the queen, then fell upon knees that the presence of Majesty had caused to quake. Elizabeth motioned him to her, and he approached, walking on his knees, in expectation of being instantly turned over to a yeoman of the guard. Hal himself remained in similar posture, which was the attitude Elizabeth required of all who addressed her.

"What know you of this young gentleman?" she asked the carpenter, in a tone that commanded like quietness in his manner of replying.

The fellow cringed and shook, begged huskily for mercy, and said that he had meant no harm; explained incoherently that the young gentleman, having fallen in with the carpenters when in his cups, had come with them to Whitehall in the belief that they were leading him to a drinking-place; that they had been curious to see his surprise when the porters, guards, or palace officers should confront him; that these functionaries had inattentively let him pass as one of the carpenters; that the carpenters had feared to disclaim him after having missed the proper moment for doing so. The fellow then began whimpering about his wife and eight children, who would starve if he were hanged or imprisoned. The queen cut him short by ordering that he and his comrades should say nothing of this young man's presence, as they valued their lives; hinted at dire penalties in case of any similar misdemeanor in future, and sent him back to his work.

"God's death!" she then said to Hal. "Watchful porters and officers! I'll find those to blame, and they shall smart for their want of eyes. A glance at your hose and shoes, muddy though they be, would have made you out no workman. Yet perchance I shall have cause not to be sorry for their laxity this once. If it be that you are the man to serve me, I shall think you God-sent to my hand, for God he knows 'twas little like I should find in mine own palace a man not known there, and whom it should not seem possible I might ever have talked withal! Even had I sent for such an one, or had him brought to the palace for secret audience, there had needs been more trace left of my meeting him than there need be of my meeting you."

Hal perceived not why so absolute a monarch need conduct any matter darkly, or hide traces of her hand in it; but he said nothing, save that, if it might fall his happy lot to serve her, the gift from God would be to himself.

As for the queen, she had already made up her mind that he should serve her. It must be he, or no one. She had come to the garden from her privy council, with a certain secret act in her mind, an act possible to her if the right agent could be found; but in despair of finding in the given time such an agent,-one through whom her own instigation of the act could never be traced by the smallest circumstance. Here, as if indeed dropped from heaven, was a possible agent having that most needed, least expected, qualification. There need not remain the slightest credible evidence of his present interview with her. This qualification found so unexpectedly, without being sought, she was willing to risk that the young player possessed the other requisites, uncommon though they were. She believed he was loyal and chivalrous; therefore he would be as likely to keep her secret, at any hazard to himself, as to serve her with all zeal and with as much skill as he could command. By seeming to hold back her decision as to whether he might do her errand, she but gave that errand the more importance, and whetted his ambition to serve her in it.

"There is much to be said," replied the queen, "and small time to say it in. 'Tis already some minutes since I left my people without the hedge and came into this alley. They will presently think I am long meditating alone. They must not know I have seen you, or that you were here. So we must needs speak swiftly and quietly. As for those carpenters, who are all that know of your presence here. I have thrown that fellow into so great a fear, he and his mates will keep silence. Now heed. My privy council hath evidence of a certain gentleman's part in the conspiracy of your friends who abetted the Lord Essex. 'Tis evidence positive enough, and plenty enough, to take off his head, or twenty heads an he had them. He hath not the slightest knowledge that he is betrayed. 'Tis very like he sits at home, in the country, thinking himself secure, while the warrant is being writ for his arrest. The pursuivant to execute the warrant is to set out with men this afternoon. So much delay have I contrived to cause."

"Delay, your Majesty?" echoed Hal, thinking he might have wrongly heard.

"Delay," repeated Elizabeth, using for her extraordinary disclosures a quite ordinary tone. "I have delayed this messenger of the council for time to plan how the gentleman may escape before the arrest can be made."

She waited a moment, till Hal's look passed back from surprise to careful attention.

"You wonder that a queen, who may command all, should use secret means in such a matter. You wonder that I did not put my prohibition, at the outset, on proceedings against this gentleman. Or that I do not now order them stopped, by my sovereign right. Or that I do not openly pardon him, now or later. You do not see, young sir, that sometimes a monarch, though all-powerful, may have reason to sanction or even command a thing, yet have deep-hidden reason why the thing should be undone."

Hal bowed. He had little knowledge, or curiosity, regarding the mysteries of state affairs, and easily believed that the general weal might be promoted by the queen's outwardly authorizing a subject's arrest, and then secretly compassing his escape. And yet he might have known that a Tudor's motives in interfering with the natural course of justice were more likely to be private than public, and that a Tudor's circumstances must be unusual indeed to call for clandestine means, rather than an arbitrary mandate, for such interference. It was not till long afterward that, by putting two and two together, he formed the theory which it is perhaps as well to set forth now, at the opening of our history.

The Essex conspiracy was not against the person or supremacy of the queen, but against her existing government, which the plotters hoped to set aside by making her temporarily a prisoner and forcing her decrees. They avowed the greatest devotion to her Majesty's self. As a woman, she had little or no reason for bitter feelings against them. But the safety of the realm required that the principals should suffer. Yet she might have pardoned her beloved Essex, had she received the ring he sent her in claim of the promise of which it was the pledge.17 But thinking him too proud even to ask the mercy he might have had of her, she let him die. As for his chief satellites, there were some for whom she cared nothing, some against whom there were old scores, and who might as well be dead or imprisoned as not, even were public policy out of the question. Southampton, for one, had offended her by marrying, and had later been a cause of sharp passages between her and Essex. But as to this mysterious gentleman, of whom she spoke to Master Marryott?

He was one of those who had contrived to get safe away from London, and who felicitated themselves that there existed no trace of their connection with the plot, but against whom evidence had eventually arisen in private testimony before the council. Of these men, it was decided by the council to make at least one capital example, and this particular gentleman was chosen, for his being a Catholic as well as a conspirator.

Now the fact seems to have been that Elizabeth, the woman, had softer recollections of this gentleman than Elizabeth, the queen, was fain to acknowledge to third parties. He was not alone in this circumstance, but he differed from Essex and other favored gentlemen in several particulars. Being a Catholic, he was not of the court. Once, many years before this March day, the queen, while hunting, sought refuge at his house from a sudden storm. She prolonged her stay on pretexts, and then kept him in attendance during one of her journeyings. Her association with him was conducted with unusual concealment. It was not violently broken off, nor carried on to satiety and natural death. It was merely interrupted and never resumed. Thus it remained sweet in her memory, took on the soft, idealizing tones that time gives, and was now cherished in her heart as an experience apart from, and more precious than, all other such. It was the one serene, perfect love-poem of her life. The others had been stormy, and mixed with a great deal of prose. This one might have been written by Mr. Edmund Spenser. And it was the dearer to her for its being a secret. No one had ever known of it but a tight-mouthed old manservant and a faithful maid of honor, the former now infirm, the latter dead.

She could not endure to mar this, her pet romance, by letting its hero die when it was in her power to save him. She had never put forth her hand, nor had he asked her to do so, to shield him from the smaller persecutions to which his religion had exposed him from neighbors and judges and county officers, and which had forced him to live most of the time an exile in France. But death was another matter, a catastrophe she liked not to think of as overtaking him through operations she could control; and this was none the less true though she had no hope of ever meeting him again.

Moreover, this lover had upon her affection one claim that others had forfeited: he had never married.18 That alone entitled him at this time, in her eyes, to a consideration not merited by Essex or Southampton. And, again, her fortitude had been so drawn upon in consigning Essex to the block, that she had not sufficient left to tolerate the sacrifice of this other sharer of her heart.

Now that fortitude had been greatly, though tacitly, admired by the lords to whom she wished to appear the embodiment of regal firmness, and she could not bring herself to confess to them that it was exhausted, or unequal to the next demand upon it. More than ever, in these later days, she desired to appear strong against her inner feelings, or indeed to appear quite above such inner feelings as she had too often shown toward her favorite gentlemen. That she, the Virgin Queen, leader of her people, conqueress of the great Armada, had entertained such feelings in the past, and been so foolish as to disclose them, was the greater reason why she now, when about to leave her final impression upon history, should seem proof against them. To refuse her sanction to the council's decision concerning this gentleman, when there was twofold political reason for that decision, and no political reason to interpose against it, would open the doors upon her secret. And she was as loath to expose her tenderly recollected love to be even suspected or guessed at, such was the ideal and sacred character it had taken in years of covert memory, as she was to be thought still prone to her old weakness. As for awaiting events and eventually saving the man by a pardon, such a course, in view of her having sanctioned the council's choice of him as an example, would disclose her as false to the council, and capricious beyond precedent, and would betray her secret as well.19

So here was one case in which she dared not arbitrarily oppose the council's proceeding, though her old lover's arrest meant his conviction, as sure as verdict was ever decided ere judge and jury sat,-as verdicts usually were in the treason trials of that blessed reign. For her peace as a woman, she must prevent that arrest. For her reputation as a queen, she must seem to favor it, and the prevention must be secret. One weakness, the vanity of strength and resolution, required that the indulgence of another weakness, undue tenderness of heart toward a particular object, should be covert. The queen's right hand must not know what the woman's left hand did. To get time for a plan, as she told Hal, she had requested that the pursuivant's men, while in quest of the gentleman, might bear letters to certain justices in his neighborhood; the preparation of these letters would delay, for a few hours, the departure of the warrant.

For her purpose she needed a man of courage, adroitness, and celerity; one who would be loyal to the secret reposed in him alone; one so out of court circles, so far from access to or by herself, that if he ever should betray her part in his mission none would believe him; a man who would take it on faith, as Hal really did, that deep state reasons dictated the nullification, secretly, of a proceeding granted openly,-for this strong queen would not have even the necessary confidant, any more than the lords of the council, suspect this weak woman.

"The man who is my servant in this," went on the queen, "must seem to act entirely for himself, not for me. There must be no evidence of his having served me; so he will never receive the credit of this mission for his sovereign, save in that sovereign's thoughts alone."

"Where else should he seek it, your Majesty?" replied Hal, brought to this degree of unselfish chivalry by the influence of her presence.

"Where else, truly?" echoed the queen, with a faint smile. "And he must never look to me for protection, should he find himself in danger of prison or death, in consequence of this service. Indeed, if pressure move him to say 'twas I commissioned him, I shall declare it a lie of malice or of deep design, meant to injure me."

"Your Majesty shall not be put to that shift, an I be your happy choice for the business," said Hal, thrilling more and more devotedly to the task as it appeared the more perilous and rewardless.

"You will be required to go from London," continued the queen, forgetting her pretence that he was not yet certainly her choice for the errand, "and to give your friends good reason for your absence."

"'Twill be easy," replied the player. "Our company goes travelling next week. I can find necessity for preceding them. One Master Crowe can play my parts till I fall in with them again."

"Even this gentleman," resumed the queen, after a moment's thought, and a consultation with pride and prudence, "must not know whom you obey in saving him. Your knowledge of his danger must seem to have come through spy work, or treachery in the palace, and your zeal for his safety must appear to spring from your friendship for the Essex party. The gentleman's mansion is near Welwyn, in Hertfordshire. He is a knight, one Sir Valentine Fleetwood."

Hal suppressed a cry. "Why, then," he said, "I can truly appear to act for myself in saving him. He is my friend, my benefactor; his father saved my grandfather's life in the days of papistry. I shall not be put to the invention of false reasons for saving Sir Valentine. There is reason enough in friendship and gratitude. I knew not he was back in England."

"That is well," said Elizabeth, checking a too hearty manifestation of her pleasure at the coincidence. "Now hear what you shall do. The pursuivant who is to apprehend him will ride forth this afternoon at about three o' the clock, with a body of men. You must set out earlier, arrive at Fleetwood house before them, warn Sir Valentine that they are coming, persuade him to fly, whether he will or no, and in every possible manner aid and hasten his safe departure from the country."

Hal bowed. His look betrayed some disappointment, as if the business were neither as difficult nor as dangerous as he had looked for.

The queen smiled.

"You think it a tame and simple matter," she said. "A mere business of fast riding 'twixt London and Welwyn, and thence to a seaport. But allow for the unexpected, young sir, which usually befalleth! Suppose impediments hinder you, as they hinder many on shorter journeys. Or suppose Sir Valentine be not at home when you arrive, and require seeking lest he by chance fall in with the pursuivant ere you meet him. Suppose he be not of a mind to fly the country, but doubt your warning, or choose to stay and risk trial rather than invite outlawry and confiscation. Suppose, in aiding him, you encounter the pursuivant and his men.20 'Twill be your duty to resist them to the utmost, even with your life. And should you be overcome and taken, you know what are the penalties of resisting officers on the queen's business, and of giving aid to her enemies. This business will make you as much a traitor, by statute, as Sir Valentine himself. Remember, if you be taken I shall not interfere in your behalf. It shall be that I know naught of you, and that I hold your act an impudent treason against myself, and call for your lawful death. So think not 'tis some holiday riding I send you on; and go not lightly as 'twere a-maying. Be ready for grave dangers and obstructions. Look to't ye be not taken! Perchance your own safety may yet lie in other countries for a time, ere all is done. Look for the unexpected, I tell you."

"I shall be heedful, your majesty. I crave your pardon,-'tis shame I must confess it,-there will be horses to obtain, and other matters; I lack means-"

"By God's light, 'tis well I came by a purse-full this morning, and forgetfully bore it with me, having much on my mind," said Elizabeth, detaching a purse from her girdle and handing it to Hal. "I'm not wont of late to go so strong in purse.21 Pour these yellow pieces into your pocket-no need to count-and leave but two or three to make some noise withal." When Hal had obeyed her, she took back the purse and replaced it at her girdle. "Use what you need in the necessary costs; supply Sir Valentine an he require money, and let the rest be payment to yourself. Nay, 'twill be small enough, God's name! Yet I see no more reward for you-until all be smoothly done, and time hath passed, and you may find new access to me in other circumstance. Then I shall remember, and find way of favoring you."

Hal thereupon had vague, distant visions of himself as a gentleman pensioner, and as a knight, and as otherwise great; but he said only:

"The trust you place in me is bounteous reward, your Majesty!"

To which her Majesty replied:

"Bid yon carpenter lead you from the garden by private ways, that you may pass out as you entered, in the guise of a workman. Lose no time, thenceforth,-and God bless thee, lad!"

Hal was in the seventh heaven. She had actually thee'd him! And now she held out her hand, which he, on his knees, touched with reverential lips. It was a shapely, beautiful hand, even to the last of the queen's days; and a shapely, beautiful thing it was to remain in Hal's mental vision to the last of his. In a kind of dream he stepped back, bowing, to the alley's end. When he raised his eyes, the queen had turned, and was speeding toward the other end of the alley. A March wind was following her, between the high hedgerows, disturbing two or three tiny twigs that had lain in the frozen path.22

At that moment Hal counted his life a small thing save where it might serve her; while she, who had read him through in five minutes, was thanking her stars for the miraculous timely advent of an agent so peculiarly suited to so peculiar a service,-a youth of some worldly experience, yet with all those chivalrous illusions which make him the greedier of a task as it is the more dangerous, the more zealous in it as it offers the less material reward. The romantic sophistries that youth cherishes may be turned to great use by those who know how to employ them. Indeed, may not the virtue of loyalty and blind devotion have been an invention of ingenious rulers, for their own convenience? May not that of woman-worship be an invention of subtly clever women themselves, when women were wisely content with being worshipped, and were not ambitious of being elbowed and pushed about in the world's business; when they were satisfied to be the divinities, not the competitors, of men? Elizabeth knew that this player's head, heart, and hand were now all hers for the service engaged; and that by entrusting him with a large amount in gold, in advance, she but increased his sense of obligation to perform her errand without failing in a single point.

As he passed Charing Cross and proceeded eastward through the Strand, Hal became aware of the pains caused by his sleeping outdoors in March weather, and of the headache from last night's wine. In his interview with the queen, he had been unconscious of these. But he foresaw sufficient bodily activity to rid himself of them, with the aid of a copious warming draught and of a breakfast. He obtained the warming draught at the first tavern within Temple Bar, which was none other than the Devil. A drawer recognized him, despite the 'prentice's coat and cap,-no one who knew Master Marryott could be much surprised at his having got into any possible strange attire in some nocturnal prank,-and notified the landlord, who thereupon restored to Hal the rapier taken away the previous night. From the Devil tavern, Hal went to three or four shops farther in Fleet Street, and when he emerged from the last of these he wore a dull green cloth cloak, brown-lined, over his brown velvet doublet; a featherless brown hat of ample brim on his head, and high riding-boots to cover the nether part of his brown silk trunk-hose.

He had already looked his errand in the face, and made some plan for dealing with it. As he would be no match for a band of highway robbers, should he fall in with such between London and Welwyn, he must have at least one stout attendant. Fortunately. Paul's Walk, the place in which to obtain either man or woman for any service or purpose whatever, lay in his way to his lodging, where he must go before leaving London. He hastened through Ludgate, with never a glance at the prisoners whining through the iron grates their appeals for charity; and into Paul's Churchyard, and strode through the southern entrance of the mighty cathedral, making at once for the middle aisle.

It was the fashionable hour for the Paul's walkers,-about noon,-and the hubbub of a vast crowd went up to the lofty arches overhead. The great minster walk, with its column on which advertisements were hung, its column around which serving-men stood waiting to be hired, its other particular spots given over by custom to particular purposes, was to London at midday what the interior of the Exchange was by candle-light,-a veritable place of lounging, gossiping, promenading, trading, begging, pimping, pocket-picking, purse-cutting, everything. Hal threaded a swift way through the moving, chattering, multi-colored crowd, with an alert eye for the manner of man he wanted. Suddenly he felt a pull at his elbow; and turned instantly to behold a dismal attempt at gaiety on the large-boned red face of Captain Bottle. Beneath his forced grin, old Kit was in sadly sorry countenance, which made his attire look more poor and ragged than usual.

"What, old heart!" cried Kit. "Thou'rt alive, eh? Bones of Mary, I thought thee swallowed up by some black night-walking dragon in Cow Lane this morning!"

"We were together last night, I think," said Hal, not with positive certainty.

"Together, i' faith, till by my cursing and hard breathing I killed in mine ears the sound of thy steps, so I could not follow thee. Ah, Hal, there was the foul fiend's hand in the separating of us! For, being alone, and sitting down to rest me in the street, without Newgate, what should happen but I should fall asleep, and my purse be cut ere I waked? Old Kit hath not e'en a piece of metal left, to mimic the sound of coin withal!" Old Kit's look was so blue at this that Hal knew he was truly penniless, though whether the loss of his money had been as he related it, was a question for which Hal had no answer. The captain's eyes were already inclining toward that part of Hal's costume where his money was commonly bestowed.

"This evil town is plainly too much for thy rustical innocence, Kit," said Hal. "You need a country change. Come with me for a few days. Don't stare. I have private business, and require a man like thee. There's meat, drink, and beds in it, while it lasts; some fighting maybe, and perchance a residue of money when costs are paid. If there be, we shall divide equally. Wilt follow me?"

"To the other side of the round world, boy! And though old Kit be something of a liar and guzzler, and a little of a cheater and boaster, thou'lt find him as faithful as a dog, and as companionable a rascal as ever lived!"

"Then take this money, and buy me two horses in Smithfield, all equipped; and meet me with them at two o'clock, in St. John's Street, close without the bar. But first get thyself dinner, and a warm cloak to thy back. Haste, old dog o' war! There will be swift going for us, maybe, ere many suns set!"

The two left St. Paul's together by the north door. Bottle going on northward toward the Newgate,23 Hal turning eastward toward St. Helen's, where he would refresh himself with a bath and food, and tell Mr. Shakespeare of news given him by a court scrivener in drunken confidence; of an imperative obligation to go and warn a friend in danger; of money won in dicing; of a willingness to resign his parts to Gil Crowe, and of his intention to rejoin the players at the first opportunity, wherever they might be.

As he turned out Bishopsgate Street, he thought how clear his way lay before him, and smiled with benignant superiority to his simple task. And then suddenly, causing his smile to fade a little, came back to him the words of the queen, "Allow for the unexpected, young sir, which usually befalleth!"

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