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Read books online » Fiction » Master Skylark: A Story of Shakspere's Time by John Bennett (interesting books to read in english .txt) 📖

Book online «Master Skylark: A Story of Shakspere's Time by John Bennett (interesting books to read in english .txt) đŸ“–Â». Author John Bennett



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There was a red-faced woman there who bade him not to cry—’t would soon be breakfast-time. Nick thought he could not eat at all; but when the savory smell crept out and filled the chilly air, his poor little empty stomach would not be denied, and he ate heartily. Master Heywood sat beside him and gave him the choicest bits from his own trencher; and Carew himself, seeing that he ate, looked strangely pleased, and ordered him a tiny mutton-pie, well spiced. Nick pushed it back indignantly; but Heywood took the pie and cut it open, saying quietly: “Come, lad, the good God made the sheep that is in this pie, not Gaston Carew. Eat it—come, ’twill do thee good!” and saw him finish the last crumb.

From Towcester south through Northamptonshire is a pretty country of rolling hills and undulating hollows, ribboned with pebbly rivers, and dotted with fair parks and tofts of ash and elm and oak. Straggling villages now and then were threaded on the road like beads upon a string, and here and there the air was damp and misty from the grassy fens along some winding stream.

It was against nature that a healthy, growing lad should be so much cast down as not to see and be interested in the strange, new, passing world of things about him; and little by little Nick roused from his wretchedness and began to look about him. And a wonder grew within his brain: why had they stolen him?—where were they taking him?—what would they do with him there?—or would they soon let him go again?

Every yellow cloud of dust arising far ahead along the road wrought up his hopes to a Bluebeard pitch, as regularly to fall. First came a cast-off soldier from the war in the Netherlands, rakishly forlorn, his breastplate full of rusty dents, his wild hair worn by his steel cap, swaggering along on a sorry hack with an old belt full of pistolets, and his long sword thumping Rosinante’s ribs. Then a peddling chapman, with a dust-white pack and a cunning Hebrew look, limped by, sulkily doffing his greasy hat. Two sturdy Midland journeymen, in search of southern handicraft, trudged down with tool-bags over their shoulders and stout oak staves in hand. Of wretched beggars and tattered rogues there was an endless string. But of any help no sign.

Here and there, like a moving dot, a ploughman turned a belated furrow; or a sweating ditcher leaned upon his reluctant spade and longed for night; or a shepherd, quite as silly as his sheep, gawked up the morning hills. But not a sign of help for Nick.

Once, passing through a little town, he raised a sudden cry of “Help! Help—they be stealing me away!” But at that the master-player and the bandy-legged man waved their hands and set up such a shout that his shrill outcry was not even heard. And the simple country bumpkins, standing in a grinning row like so many Old Aunt Sallys at a fair, pulled off their caps and bowed, thinking it some company of great lords, and fetched a clownish cheer as the players galloped by.

Then the hot dust got into Nick’s throat, and he began to cough. Carew started with a look of alarm. “Come, come, Nicholas, this will never do—never do in the world; thou’lt spoil thy voice.”

“I do na care,” said Nick.

“But I do,” said Carew, sharply. “So we’ll have no more of it!” and he clapped his hand upon his poniard. “But, nay—nay, lad, I did not mean to threaten thee—’tis but a jest. Come, smooth thy throat, and do not shriek no more. We play in old St. Albans town to-night, and thou art to sing thy song for us again.”

Nick pressed his lips tight shut and shook his head. He would not sing for them again.

“Come, Nick, I’ve promised Tom Heywood that thou shouldst sing his song; and, lad, there’s no one left in all the land to sing it if thou’lt not. Tom doth dearly love thee, lad—why, sure, thou hast seen that! And, Nick, I’ve promised all the company that thou wouldst sing Tom’s song with us to-night. ’Twill break their hearts if thou wilt not. Come, Nick, thou’lt sing it for us all, and set old Albans town afire!” said Carew, pleadingly.

Nick shook his head.

“Come, Nick,” said Carew, coaxingly, “we must hear that sweet voice of thine in Albans town to-night. Come, there’s a dear, good lad, and give us just one little song! Come, act the man and sing, as thou alone in all the world canst sing, in Albans town this night; and on my word, and on the remnant of mine honour, I’ll leave thee go back to Stratford town to-morrow morning!”

“To Stratford—to-morrow?” stammered Nick, with a glad, incredulous cry, while his heart leaped up within him.

“Ay, verily; upon my faith as the fine fag-end of a very proper gentleman—thou shalt go back to Stratford town to-morrow if thou wilt but do thy turn with us to-night.”

Nick caught the master-player’s arm as they rode along, almost crying for very joy: “Oh, that I will, sir—and do my very best. And, oh, Master Carew, I ha’ thought so ill o’ thee! Forgive me, sir; I did na know thee well.”

Carew winced. Hastily throwing the rein to Nick, he left him to master his own array.

As for Nick, as happy as a lark he learned his new lines as he rode along, Master Carew saying them over to him from the manuscript and over again until he made not a single mistake; and was at great pains to teach him the latest fashionable London way of pronouncing all the words, and of emphasizing his set phrases. “Nay, nay,” he would cry laughingly, “not that way, lad; but this: ‘Good my lord, I bring a letter from the duke’—as if thou hadst indeed a letter, see, and not an empty fist. And when thou dost hand it to him, do it thus—and not as if thou wert about to stab him in the paunch with a cheese-knife!” And at the end he clapped him upon the back and said again and again that he loved him, that he was a dear, sweet figure of a lad, and that his voice among the rest of England’s singers, was like clear honey dropping into a pot of grease.

But it is a long ride from Towcester to St. Albans town in Herts, though the road runs through a pleasant, billowy land of oak-walled lanes, wide pastures, and quiet parks; and the steady jog, jog of the little roan began to rack Nick’s tired bones before the day was done.

Yet when they marched into the quaint old town to the blare of trumpets and the crash of the kettledrums, all the long line gaudy with the coat-armour of the Lord High Admiral beneath their flaunting banners, and the horses pricked up their ears and arched their necks and pranced along the crowded streets, Nick, stared at by all the good townsfolk, could not help feeling a thrill of pride that he was one of the great company of players, and sat up very straight and held his head up haughtily as Master Carew did, and bore himself with as lordly an air as he knew how.

But when morning came, and he danced blithely back from washing himself at the horse-trough, all ready to start for home, he found the little roan cross-bridled as before between the master-player’s gray and the bandy-legged fellow’s sorrel mare.

“What, there! cast him loose,” said he to the horse-boy who held the three. “I am not going on with the players—I’m to go back to Stratford.”

“Then ye go afoot,” coolly rejoined the other, grinning, “for the hoss goeth on wi’ the rest.”

“What is this, Master Carew?” cried Nick, indignantly, bursting into the tap-room, where the players were at ale. “They will na let me have the horse, sir. Am I to walk the whole way back to Stratford town?”

“To Stratford?” asked Master Carew, staring with an expression of most innocent surprise, as he set his ale-can down and turned around. “Why, thou art not going to Stratford.”

“Not going to Stratford!” gasped Nick, catching at the table with a sinking heart. “Why, sir, ye promised that I should to-day.”

“Nay, now, that I did not, Nicholas. I promised thee that thou shouldst go back to-morrow—were not those my very words!”

“Ay, that they were,” cried Nick; “and why will ye na leave me go?”

“Why, this is not to-morrow, Nick. Why, see, I cannot leave thee go to-day. Thou knowest that I said to-morrow; and this is not to-morrow—on thine honour, is it now?”

“How can I tell?” cried Nick, despairingly. “Yesterday ye said it would be, and now ye say that it is na. Ye’ve twisted it all up so that a body can na tell at all. But there is a falsehood—a wicked, black falsehood—somewhere betwixt you and me, sir; and ye know that I have na lied to you, Master Carew!”

Through the tap-room door he saw the open street and the hills beyond the town. Catching his breath, he sprang across the sill, and ran for the free fields at the top of his speed.





CHAPTER XIV
AT BAY

“After him!—stop him!—catch the rogue!” cried Carew, running out on the cobbles with his ale-can in his hand. “A shilling to the man that brings him back unharmed! No blows, nor clubs, nor stabbing, hark ’e, but catch me the knave straightway; he hath snatched a fortune from my hands!”

At that the hostler, whip in hand, and the tapster with his bit, were off as fast as their legs could carry them, bawling “Stop, thief, stop!” at the top of their lungs; and at their backs every idle varlet about the inn—grooms, stable-boys, and hangers-on—ran whooping, howling, and hallooing like wild huntsmen.

Nick’s frightened heart was in his mouth, and his breath came quick and sharp. Tap-a-tap, tap-a-tap went his feet on the cobblestones as down the long street he flew, running as he had never run before.

It seemed as if the whole town bellowed at his back; for windows creaked above his head, and doors banged wildly after him; curs from every alley-way came yelping at his heels; apprentices let go the shutter-bars, and joined in the chase; and near and nearer came the cry of “Stop, thief, stop!” and the kloppety-klop of hob-nailed shoes in wild pursuit.

The rabble filled the dark old street from wall to wall, as if a cloud of good-for-naughts had burst above the town; and far in front sped one small, curly-headed lad, running like a frightened fawn. He had lost his cap, and his breath came short, half sobbing in his throat as the sound of footfalls gained upon his ear; but even yet he might have beaten them all and reached the open fields but for the dirt and garbage in the street. Three times he slipped upon a rancid bacon-rind and almost fell; and the third time, as he plunged across the oozing drain, a dog dashed right between his feet.

He staggered, nearly fell, threw out his hand against the house and saved himself; but as he started on again he saw the town-watch, wakened by the uproar, standing with their long staves at the end of the street, barring the way.

The door of a smithy stood open just ahead, with forge-fires glowing and the hammer ringing on the anvil. Nick darted in, past the horses, hostlers, and blacksmith’s boys, and caught at the leather apron of the sturdy smith himself.

“Hoo, man, what a dickens!” snorted he, dropping the red-hot shoe on which he was at work, and staring like a startled ox at the panting little fugitive.

“Do na leave them take me!” panted Nick. “They ha’ stolen me away from Stratford town and will na leave me go!”

At that Will Hostler bolted in, red-faced and scant of wind, “Thou young rascal,” quoth he, “I have thee now! Come out o’ that!” and he tried to take Nick by the collar.

“So-oftly, so-oftly!” rumbled the smith, tweaking up the glowing shoe in his great pincers, and sweeping a sputtering half-circle in front of the cowering lad. “Droive slow through the cro-owd! What hath youngster here did no-ow?”

“He hath stolen a fortune from his master at the Three Lions—and the shilling for him’s mine!”

“Hath stealed a fortune? Whoy, huttlety-tut!” roared the burly smith, turning ponderously upon Nick, who was dodging around him like a boy at tag around a tree. “Whoy, lad,” said he, scratching his puzzled head with his great, grimy fingers, “where hast putten it?”

All the rout and the riot now came plunging into the smithy, breathless with the chase. Master Carew himself, his ale-can still clutched in his hand, and bearing himself

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