Master Skylark: A Story of Shakspere's Time by John Bennett (top rated books of all time txt) 📕
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- Author: John Bennett
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Master Heywood was there, and bowed to Nick with a kindly smile. His companion was a handsome, proud-mouthed man with a blue, smooth-shaven face and a jet-black periwig. Him Carew drew aside and spoke with in an earnest undertone. As he talked, the other began to stare at Nick as if he were some curious thing in a cage.
“Upon my soul,” said Carew, “ye never heard the like of it. He hath a voice as sweet and clear as if Puck had burst a honey-bag in his throat.”
“No doubt,” replied the other, carelessly; “and all the birds will hide their heads when he begins to sing. But we don’t want him, Carew—not if he had a voice like Miriam the Jew. Henslowe has just bought little Jem Bristow of Will Augusten for eight pound sterling, and business is too bad to warrant any more.”
“Who spoke of selling?” said Carew, sharply. “Don’t flatter your chances so, Master Alleyn. I wouldn’t sell the boy for a world full of Jem Bristows. Why, his mouth is a mint where common words are coined into gold! Sell him? I think I see myself in Bedlam for a fool! Nay, Master Alleyn, what I am coming at is this: I’ll place him at the Rose, to do his turn in the play with the rest of us, or out of it alone, as ye choose, for one fourth of the whole receipts over and above my old share in the venture. Do ye take me?”
“Take you? One fourth the whole receipts! Zounds! man, do ye think we have a spigot in El Dorado?”
“Tush! Master Alleyn, don’t make a poor mouth; you’re none so needy. You and Henslowe have made a heap of money out of us all.”
“And what of that? Yesterday’s butter won’t smooth to-day’s bread. ’Tis absurd of you, Carew, to ask one fourth and leave all the risk on us, with the outlook as it is! Here’s that fellow Langley has built a new play-house in Paris Garden, nearer to the landing than we are, and is stealing our business most scurvily!”
Carew shrugged his shoulders.
“And what’s more, the very comedy for which Ben Jonson left us, because we would not put it on, has been taken up by the Burbages on Will Shakspere’s say-so, and is running famously at the Curtain.”
“I told you so, Master Alleyn, when the fellow was fresh from the Netherlands,” said Carew; “but your ears were plugged with your own conceit. Young Jonson is no flatfish, if he did lay brick; he’s a plum worth anybody’s picking.”
“But, plague take it, Carew, those Burbages have all the plums! Since they weaned Will Shakspere from us everything has gone wrong. Kemp has left us; old John Lowin, too; and now the Lord Mayor and Privy Council have soured on the play again and forbidden all playing on the Bankside, outside the City or no.”
Carew whistled softly to himself.
“And since my Lord Chamberlain has been patron of the Burbages he will not so much as turn a hand to revive the old game of bull- and bear-baiting, and Phil and I have kept the Queen’s bulldogs going on a twelvemonth now at our own expense—a pretty canker on our profits! Why, Carew, as Will Shakspere used to say, ‘One woe doth tread the other’s heels, so fast they follow!’ And what’s to do?”
“What’s to do?” said Carew. “Why, I’ve told ye what’s to do. Ye’ve heard Will say, ‘There is a tide leads on to fortune if ye take it at the flood’? Well, Master Alleyn, here’s the tide, and at the flood. I have offered you an argosy. Will ye sail or stick in the mud? Ye’ll never have such a chance again. Come, one fourth over my old share, and I will fill your purse so full of gold that it will gape like a stuffed toad. His is the sweetest skylark voice that ever sugared ears!”
“But, man, man, one fourth!”
“Better one fourth than lose it all,” said Carew. “But, pshaw! Master Ned Alleyn, I’ll not beg a man to swim that’s bent on drowning! We will be at the play-house this afternoon; mayhap thou’lt have thought better of it by then.” With a curt bow he was off through the crowd, Nick’s hand in his own clenched very tight.
They had hard work getting down the steps, for two hot-headed gallants were quarreling there as to who should come up first, and there was a great press. But Carew scowled and showed his teeth, and clenched his poniard-hilt so fiercely that the commoners fell away and let them down.
Nick’s eyes were hungry for the printers’ stalls where ballad-sheets were sold for a penny, and where the books were piled along the shelves until he wondered if all London were turned printer. He looked about to see if he might chance upon Diccon Field; but Carew came so quickly through the crowd that Nick had not time to recognize Diccon if he had been there. Diccon had often made Nick whistles from the pollard willows along the Avon below the tannery when Nick was a toddler in smocks, and the lad thought he would like to see him before going back to Stratford. Then, too, his mother had always liked Diccon Field, and would be glad to hear from him. At thought of his mother he gave a happy little skip; and as they turned into Paternoster Bow, “Master Carew,” said he, “how soon shall I go home?”
Carew walked a little faster.
There had arisen a sound of shouting and a trampling of feet. The constables had taken a purse-cutting thief, and were coming up to the Newgate prison with a great rabble behind them. The fellow’s head was broken, and his haggard face was all screwed up with pain; but that did not stop the boys from hooting at him, and asking in mockery how he thought he would like to be hanged and to dance on nothing at Tyburn Hill.
“DICCON HAD OFTEN MADE NICK WHISTLES FROM THE WILLOWS ALONG THE AVON WHEN NICK WAS A TODDLER.”
“Did ye hear me, Master Carew?” asked Nick.
The master-player stepped aside a moment into a doorway to let the mob go by, and then strode on.
Nick tried again: “I pray thee, sir—”
“Do not pray me,” said Carew, sharply; “I am no Indian idol.”
“But, good Master Carew—”
“Nor call me good—I am not good.”
“But, Master Carew,” faltered Nick, with a sinking sensation around his heart, “when will ye leave me go home?”
The master-player did not reply, but strode on rapidly, gnawing his mustache.
MASTER HEYWOOD PROTESTS
It was a cold, raw day. All morning long the sun had shone through the choking fog as the candle-flame through the dingy yellow horn of an old stable-lantern. But at noon a wind sprang up that drove the mist through London streets in streaks and strings mixed with smoke and the reek of steaming roofs. Now and then the blue gleamed through in ragged patches overhead; so that all the town turned out on pleasure bent, not minding if it rained stewed turnips, so they saw the sky.
But the fog still sifted through the streets, and all was damp and sticky to the touch, so Cicely was left behind to loneliness and disappointment.
Nick and the master-player came down Ludgate Hill to Blackfriars landing in a stream of merrymakers, high and low, rich and poor, faring forth to London’s greatest thoroughfare, the Thames; and as the river and the noble mansions along the Strand came into view, Nick’s heart beat fast. It was a sight to stir the pulse.
Far down the stream, the grim old Tower loomed above the drifting mist; and, higher up, old London Bridge, lined with tall houses, stretched from shore to shore. There were towers on it with domes and gilded vanes, and the river foamed and roared under it, strangled by the piers. From the dock at St. Mary Averies by the Bridge to Barge-house stairs, the landing-stages all along the river-bank were thronged with boats; and to and fro across the stream, wherries, punts, barges, and water-craft of every kind were plying busily. In middle stream sail-boats tugged along with creaking sweeps, or brown-sailed trading-vessels slipped away to sea, with costly freight for Muscovy, Turkey, and the Levant. And amid the countless water-craft a multitude of stately swans swept here and there like snow-flakes on the dusky river.
Nick sniffed at the air, for it was full of strange odors—the smell of breweries, of pitchy oakum, Norway tar, spices from hot countries, resinous woods, and chilly whiffs from the water; and as they came out along the wharf, there were brown-faced, hard-eyed sailors there, who had been to the New World—wild fellows with silver rings in their ears and a swaggering stagger in their petticoated legs. Some of them held short, crooked brown tubes between their lips, and puffed great clouds of pale brown smoke from their noses in a most amazing way.
Broad-beamed Dutchmen, too, were there, and swarthy Spanish renegades, with sturdy craftsmen of the City guilds and stalwart yeomen of the guard in the Queen’s rich livery.
But ere Nick had fairly begun to stare, confused by such a rout, Carew had hailed a wherry, and they were half-way over to the Southwark side.
Landing amid a deafening din of watermen bawling hoarsely for a place along the Paris Garden stairs, the master-player hurried up the lane through the noisy crowd. Some were faring afoot into Surrey, and some to green St. George’s Fields to buy fresh fruit and milk from the farm-houses and to picnic on the grass. Some turned aside to the Falcon Inn for a bit of cheese and ale, and others to the play-houses beyond the trees and fishing-ponds. And coming down from the inn they met a crowd of players, with Master Tom Heywood at their head, frolicking and cantering along like so many overgrown school-boys.
“So we are to have thee with us awhile?” said Heywood, and put his arm around Nick’s shoulders as they trooped along.
“Awhile, sir, yes,” replied Nick, nodding; “but I am going home soon, Master Carew says.”
“Carew,” said Heywood, suddenly turning, “how can ye have the heart?”
“Come, Heywood,” quoth the master-player, curtly, though his whole face colored up, “I have heard enough of this. Will ye please to mind your own affairs?”
The writer of comedies lifted his brows, “Very well,” he answered quietly; “but, lad, this much for thee,” said he, turning to Nick, “if ever thou dost need a friend, Tom Heywood’s one will never speak thee false.”
“Sir!” cried Carew, clapping his hand upon his poniard Heywood looked up steadily. “How? Wilt thou quarrel with me, Carew? What ugly poison hath been filtered through thy wits? Why, thou art even falser than I thought! Quarrel with me, who took thy new-born child from her dying mother’s arms when thou wert fast in Newgate gaol?”
Carew’s angry face turned sickly gray. He made as if to speak, but no sound came. He shut his eyes and pushed out his hand in the air as if to stop the voice of the writer of comedies.
“Come,” said Heywood, with deep feeling; “thou canst not quarrel with me yet—nay, though thou dost try thy very worst. It would be a sorry story for my soul or thine to tell to hers.”
Carew groaned. The rest of the players had passed on, and the three stood there alone. “Don’t, Tom, don’t!” he cried.
“Then how can ye have the heart?” the other asked again.
The master-player lifted up his head, and his lips were trembling. “’Tis not the heart, Tom,” he cried bitterly, “upon my word, and on the remnant of mine honour! ’Tis the head which doeth this. For, Tom, I cannot leave him go. Why, Tom, hast thou not heard him sing? A voice which would call back the very dead that we have loved if they might only hear. Why, Tom, ’tis worth a thousand pound! How can I leave him go?”
“Oh, fie for shame upon the man I took thee for!” cried Heywood.
“But, Tom,” cried Carew, brokenly, “look it straightly in the face; I am no such player as I was,—this reckless life hath done the trick for me, Tom,—and here is ruin staring Henslowe and Alleyn in the eye. They cannot keep me master if their luck doth not change soon; and Burbage would not have me as a gift. So, Tom, what is there left to do? How can I shift without the boy? Nay, Tom, it will not serve. There’s Cicely—not one penny laid by for her against a rainy day; and I’ll be gone, Tom, I’ll be gone—it
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