Master Skylark Part 20

Nick made no doubt that this was some young earl rolling in wealth; for who else could have such listeners? Yet there was, nevertheless, something so familiar in his look that he could not help staring at him as the barge came thumping through the jam.

They pa.s.sed along an oar's-length or two away; and as they came abeam, Carew, rising, doffed his hat, and bowed politely to them all.

In spite of his wild life, he was a striking, handsome man.

The old Lord Chamberlain said something to his son, and pointed with his hand. All the company in the barge turned round to look; and he who had been talking stood up quickly with his hand upon the young lord's arm, and, smiling, waved his cap.

Nick gave a sharp cry.

Then the barge pushed through, and shot away down stream like a wild swan.

"Why, Nick," exclaimed Cicely, "how dreadful thou dost look!" and, frightened, she caught him by the hand. "Why, oh!--what is it, Nick--thou art not ill?"

"It was Will Shakspere!" cried Nick, and sank into the bottom of the wherry with his head upon the master-player's knee. "Oh, Master Carew,"

he cried, "will ye never leave me go?"

Carew laid his hand upon the boy's head, and patted it gently.

"Why, Nick," said he, and cleared his throat, "is not this better than Stratford?"

"Oh, Master Carew--mother's there!" was the reply.

There was no sound but the thud of oars in the rowlocks and the hollow bubble of the water at the stern, for they had fallen out of the hurry and were coming down alone.

"Is thy mother a good woman, Nick?" asked Cicely.

Carew was staring out into the fading sky. "Ay, sweetheart," he answered in a queer, husky voice, suddenly putting one arm about her and the other around Nick's shoulders. "None but a good mother could have so good a son."

"Then thou wilt send him home, daddy?" asked Cicely.

Carew took her hand in his, but answered nothing.

They had come to the landing.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE MAKING OP A PLAYER

Master Will Shakspere was in town! The thought ran through Nick Attwood's head like a half-remembered tune. Once or twice he had all but sung it instead of the words of his part. Master Will Shakspere was in town!

Could he but just find Master Shakspere, all his trouble would be over; for the husband of his mother's own cousin would see justice done him in spite of the master-player and the bandy-legged man with the ribbon in his ear--of that he was sure.

But there seemed small chance of its coming about; for the doors of Gaston Carew's house were locked and barred by day and by night, as much to keep Nick in as to keep thieves out; and all day long, when Carew was away, the servants went about the lower halls, and Gregory Goole's uncanny face peered after him from every shadowy corner; and when he went with Carew anywhere, the master-player watched him like a hawk, while always at his heels he could hear the clump, clump, clump of the bandy-legged man following after him.

Even were he free to go as he pleased, he knew not where to turn; for the Lord Chamberlain's company would not be at the Blackfriars play-house until Martinmas; and before that time to look for even Master Will Shakspere at random in London town would be worse than hunting for a needle in a haystack.

To be sure, he knew that the Lord Chamberlain's men were still playing at the theater in Sh.o.r.editch; for Master Carew had taken Cicely there to see the "Two Gentlemen of Verona." But just where Sh.o.r.editch was, Nick had only the faintest idea--somewhere away off by Finsbury Fields, beyond the city walls to the north of London town--and all the wide world seemed north of London town; and the way thither lay through a bewildering tangle of streets in which the din and the rush of the crowd were never still.

From a hopeless chase like that Nick shrank back like a snail into its sh.e.l.l. He was not too young to know that there were worse things than to be locked in Gaston Carew's house. It were better to be a safe-kept prisoner there than to be lost in the sinks of London. And so, knowing this, he made the best of it.

But Master Shakspere was come back to town, and that was something. It seemed somehow less lonely just to think of it.

Yet in truth he had but little time to think of it; for the master-player kept him closely at his strange, new work, and taught him daily with the most amazing patience.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "n.o.bODY BREAKS n.o.bODY'S HEARTS IN OLD JO-OHN SMITHSES SHO-OP,' DRAWLED THE SMITH, IN HIS DEEP VOICE; NOR STEALS n.o.bODY, NOTHER"]

He had Nick learn no end of stage parts off by heart, with their cues and "business," entrances and exits; and worked fully as hard as his pupil, reading over every sentence twenty times until Nick had the accent perfectly. He would have him stamp, too, and turn about, and gesture in accordance with the speech, until the boy's arms ached, going with him through the motions one by one, over and over again, unsatisfied, but patient to the last, until Nick wondered. "Nick, my lad," he would often say, with a tired but determined smile, "one little thing done wrong may spoil the finest play, as one bad apple rots the barrelful. We'll have it right, or not at all, if it takes a month of Sundays."

So, often, he kept Nick before a mirror for an hour at a time, making faces while he spoke his lines, smiling, frowning, or grimacing as best seemed to fit the part, until the boy grew fairly weary of his own looks. Then sometimes, more often as the time slipped by, Carew would clap his hands with a boyish laugh, and have a pie brought and a cup of Spanish cordial for them both, declaring that he loved the lad with all his heart, upon the remnant of his honour: from which Nick knew that he was coming on.

Cicely Carew's governess was a Mistress Agnes Anstey. By birth she had been a Harcourt of Ankerwyke, and she was therefore everywhere esteemed fit by birth and breeding to teach the young mind when to bow and when to beckon. She came each morning to the house, and Carew paid her double s.h.i.+llings to see to it that Nick learned such little tricks of cap and cloak as a lady's page need have, the carriage best fitted for his place, and how to come into a room where great folks were. Moreover, how to back out again, bowing, and not fall over the stools--which was no little art, until Nick caught the knack of peeping slyly between his legs when he bowed.

His hair, too, was allowed to grow long, and was combed carefully every day by the tiring-woman; and soon, as it was naturally curly, it fell in rolling waves about his neck.

On the heels of the governess came M'sieu de Fleury, who, it was said, had been dancing-master to Hatton, the late Lord Chancellor of England, and had taught him those tricks with his nimble heels which had capered him into the Queen's good graces, and so got him the chancellors.h.i.+p.

M'sieu spoke dreadful English, but danced like the essence of agility, and taught both Nick and Cicely the latest Italian coranto, playing the tune upon his queer little pochette.

Cicely already danced like a pixy, and laughed merrily at her comrade's first awkward antics, until he flushed with embarra.s.sment. At that she instantly became grave, and, when M'sieu had gone, came across the room, and putting her arm about Nick, said repentantly, "Don't thou mind me, Nick. Father saith the French all laugh too soon at nothing; and I have caught it from my mother's blood. A boy is not good friends with his feet as a girl is; but thou wilt do beautifully, I know; and M'sieu shall teach us the galliard together."

And often, after the lesson was over and M'sieu departed, she would have Nick try his steps over and over again in the great room, while she stood upon the stool to make her tall, and cried, "Sa--sa!" as the master did, scolding and praising him by turns, or jumping down in pretty impatience to tuck up her little silken skirts and show him the step herself; while the cook's knave and the scullery-maids peeped at the door and cried: "La, now, look 'e, Moll!" at every coupee.

It made a picture quaint and pretty to see them dancing there. The smoky light, stealing in through the narrow cas.e.m.e.nts over the woodwork dark with age, dropped in little yellow chequers upon old chests of oak, of walnut, and of strange, purple-black wood from foreign lands, giving a weird life to the griffins and twisted traceries carved upon their sides. High-backed, narrow chairs stood along the wall, with cus.h.i.+oned stools inlaid with sh.e.l.l. Twinklings of light glinted from the bra.s.s candlesticks. On the wall above the wainscot the faded hangings wavered in the draught, crusted thickly with strange embroidered flowers. And dancing there together in the semi-gloom, the children seemed quaint little figures stepped down from the tapestry at the touch of a magic wand.

And so the time went slipping by, very pleasantly upon the whole, and Nick's young heart grew stout again within his breast; for he was strong and well, and in those days the very air was full of hope, and no man knew what might betide with the rising of to-morrow's sun.

Every day, from two till three o'clock, he was at Master Gyles's private singing-room at the old cathedral school, learning to read music at first sight, and to sing offhand the second, third, and fourth parts of queer intermingled fugues or wonderfully constructed canons.

At first his head felt stuffed like a feasted glutton with all the learning that the old precentor poured into it; but by and by he found it plain enough, and no very difficult thing to follow up the p.r.i.c.kings in the paper with his voice, and to sing parts written at fifths and fourths and thirds with other voices as easily as to carry a song alone.

But still he sang best his own unpointed songs, the call and challenge of the throstle and the merle, the morning glory of the lark, songs that were impossible to write. And those were the songs that the precentor was at the greatest pains to have him sing in perfect tones, making him open his mouth like a little round and let the music float out of itself.

Like the master-player, nothing short of perfection pleased old Nathaniel Gyles, and Nick's voice often wavered with sheer weariness as he ran his endless scales and sang absurd fa-la-la-las while his teacher beat the time in the air with his lean forefinger like a grim automaton.

The old man, too, was chary of his praise, though Nick tried hard to please him, and it was only by little things he told his satisfaction.

He touzed the ears of the other boys, and sometimes smartly thumped their crowns; but with Nick he only nipped his ruddy cheek between his thumb and finger, or laid his hand upon his shoulder when the hard day's work was done, saying, "_Satis cantorum_--it is enough. Now be off to thy nest, sir; and do not forget to wash thy throat with good cold water every day."

All this time the busy sand kept running in the gla.s.s. July was gone, and August at its heels. The hot breath of the summer had cooled, and the sun no longer burned the face when it came in through the windows.

Nick often shut his eyes and let the warm light fall upon his closed lids. It made a ruddy glow like the wild red poppies that grow in the pale green rye. In fancy he could almost smell the queer, rancid odor of the crimson bloom crushed beneath the feet of the farmers' boys who cut the b.u.t.ter-yellow mustard from among the bearded grain.

"Heigh-ho and alackaday!" thought Nick. "It is better in the country than in town!" For there was no smell in all the town like the clean, sweet smell of the open fields just after a summer rain, no colors like the bright heart's-ease and none-so-pretty, or the honeysuckle over the cottage door, and no song ever to be heard among the sooty chimney-pots like the song of the throstle piping to the daisies on the hill.

But he had little time to dream such dreams, for every day from four to six o'clock the children's company played and sang in public, at their own school-hall, or in the courtyard of the Mitre Inn on Bread street near St. Paul's.

They were the pets of London town, and their playing-place was thronged day after day. For the bright young faces and sweet, unbroken voices of the richly costumed lads made a spot in sordid London life like a pot of posies in a window on a dark street; so that both the high and the low, the rich and the poor, came in to see them play and dance, to hear them sing, and to laugh again at the witty things which were written for them to say.