Master Skylark: A Story of Shakspere's Time by John Bennett (top rated books of all time txt) 📕

the steady oars carried them swiftly down. London passed; then solitary hamlets here and there; then dun fields running to the river’s edge like thirsty deer.

In Deptford Reach some lords who were coming down by water passed them, racing with a little Dutch boat from Deptford to the turn. Their boats had holly-bushes at their prows and holiday garlands along their sides. They were all shouting gaily, and the stream was bright with their scarlet cloaks, Lincoln-green jerkins, and gold embroidery. But they were very badly beaten, at which they laughed, and threw the Dutchmen a handful of silver pennies. Thereupon the Dutchmen stood up in their boat and bowed like jointed ninepins; and the lords, not to be outdone, stood up likewise in their boats and bowed very low in return, with their hands upon their breasts. Then everybody on the river laughed, and the boys gave three cheers for the merry lords and three more for the sturdy Dutchmen. The Dutchmen shouted back, “Goot Yule!” and bowed and bowed until their boat turned round and went stern foremost down the stream, so that they were bowing to the opposite bank, where no one was at all. At this the rest all laughed again till their sides ached, and cheered them twice as much as they had before.

And while they were cheering and waving their caps, the boatmen rested upon their oars and let the boats swing with the tide, which thereabout set strong against the shore, and a trumpeter in the Earl of Arundel’s barge stood up and blew upon a long horn bound with a banner of blue and gold.

Instantly he had blown, another trumpet answered from the south, and when Nick turned, the shore was gay with men in brilliant livery. Beyond was a wood of chestnut-trees as blue and leafless as a grove of spears; and in the plain between the river and the wood stood a great palace of gray stone, with turrets, pinnacles, and battlemented walls, over the topmost tower of which a broad flag, blazoned with golden lions and silver lilies square for square, whipped the winter wind. Amid a group of towers large and small a lofty stack poured out a plume of sea-coal smoke against the milky sky, and on the countless windows in the wall the sunlight flashed with dazzling radiance.

There were people on the battlements, and at the port between two towers where the Queen went in and out the press was so thick that men’s heads looked like the cobbles in the street.

The shore was stayed with piling and with timbers like a wharf, so that a hundred boats might lie there cheek by jowl and scarcely rub their paint. The lords made way, and the children players came ashore through an aisle of uplifted oars. They were met by the yeomen of the guard, tall, brawny fellows clad in red, with golden roses on their breasts and backs, and with them marched up to the postern two and two, Master Gyles the last of all, as haughty as a Spanish don come courting fair Queen Bess.

A smoking dinner was waiting them, of whitebait with red pepper, and a yellow juice so sour that Nick’s mouth drew up in a knot; but it was very good. There were besides, silver dishes full of sugared red currants, and heaps of comfits and sweetmeats, which Master Gyles would not allow them even to touch, and saffron cakes with raisins in them, and spiced hot cordial out of tiny silver cups. Bareheaded pages clad in silk and silver lace waited upon them as if they were fledgling kings; but the boys were too hungry to care for that or to try to put on airs, and waded into the meat and drink as if they had been starved for a fortnight.

But when they were done Nick saw that the table off which they had eaten was inlaid with pearl and silver filigree, and that the table-cloth was of silk with woven metal-work and gems set in it worth more than a thousand crowns. He was very glad he had eaten first, for such wonderful service would have taken away his appetite.

And truly a wonderful palace was the Queen’s Plaisance, as Greenwich House was called. Elizabeth was born in it, and so loved it most of all. There she pleased oftenest to receive and grant audiences to envoys from foreign courts. And there, on that account, as was always her proud, jealous way, she made a blinding show of glory and of wealth, of science, art, and power, that England, to the eyes which saw her there, might stand in second place to no dominion in the world, however rich or great.

It was a very house of gold.

Over the door where the lads marched in was the Queen’s device, a golden rose, with a motto set below in letters of gold, “Dieu et mon droit”; and upon the walls were blazoned coats of noble arms on branching golden trees, of purest metal and finest silk, costly beyond compare. The royal presence-chamber shone with tapestries of gold, of silver, and of oriental silks, of as many shifting colors as the birds of paradise, and wrought in exquisite design, The throne was set with diamonds, with rubies, garnets, and sapphires, glittering like a pastry-crust of stars, and garnished with gold-lace work, pearls, and ornament; and under the velvet canopy which hung above the throne was embroidered in seed-pearls, “Vivat Regina Elizabetha!” There was no door without a gorgeous usher, no room without a page, no corridor without a guard, no post without a man of noble birth to fill it.

On the walls of the great gallery were masterly paintings of great folk, globes showing all the stars fast in the sky, and drawings of the world and all its parts, so real that one could see the savages in the New World hanging to the under side by their feet, like flies upon the ceiling. How they stuck was more than Nick could make out; and where they landed if they chanced to slip and fall troubled him a deal, until in the sheer multiplication of wonders he could not wonder any more.

When they came to rehearse in the afternoon the stage was hung with stiff, rich silks that had come in costly cedar chests from the looms of old Cathay; and the curtain behind which the players came and went was broidered with gold thread in flowers and birds like meteors for splendor. The gallery, too, where the musicians sat, was draped with silk and damask.

Some of the lads would have made out by their great airs as if this were all a common thing to them; but Nick stared honestly with round eyes, and went about with cautious feet, chary of touching things, and feeling very much out of place and shy.

It was all too grand, too wonderful,—amazing to look upon, no doubt, and good to outface foreign envy with, but not to be endured every day nor lived with comfortably. And as the day went by, each passing moment with new marvels, Nick grew more and more uneasy for some simple little nook where he might just sit down and be quiet for a while, as one could do at home, without fine pages peering at him from the screens, or splendid guards patrolling at his heels wherever he went, or obsequious ushers bowing to the floor at every turn, and asking him what he might be pleased to wish. And by the time night fell and the attendant came to light them to their beds, he felt like a fly on the rim of a wheel that went so fast he could scarcely get his breath or see what passed him by, yet of which he durst not let go.

The palace was much too much for him.