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

She came with an air that was at once serious and royal, bearing herself haughtily, yet with a certain grace and sprightliness that became her very well. She was quite tall and well made, and her quickly changing face was long and fair, though wrinkled and no longer young. Her complexion was clear and of an olive hue; her nose was a little hooked; her firm lips were thin; and her small black eyes, though keen and bright, were pleasant and merry withal. Her hair was a coppery, tawny red, and false, moreover. In her ears hung two great pearls; and there was a fine small crown studded with diamonds upon her head, beside a necklace of exceeding fine gold and jewels about her neck. She was attired in a white silk gown bordered with pearls the size of beans, and over it wore a mantle of black silk, cunningly shot with silver threads. Her ruff was vast, her farthingale vaster; and her train, which was very long, was borne by a marchioness who made more ado about it than Elizabeth did of ruling her realm.

“The Queen!” gasped Colley.

“Dost think I did na know it?” answered Nick, his heart beginning to beat tattoo as he stared through the peep-hole in the screen.

He saw the great folk bowing like a gardenful of flowers in a storm, and in its midst Elizabeth erect, speaking to those about her in a lively and good-humored way, and addressing all the foreigners according to their tongue—in French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch; but hers was funny Dutch, and while she spoke she smiled and made a joke upon it in Latin, at which they all laughed heartily, whether they understood what it meant or not. Then, with her ladies in waiting, she passed to a dais near the stage, and stood a moment, stately, fair, and proud, while all her nobles made obeisance, then sat and gave a signal for the players to begin.

“Rafe Fullerton!” the prompter whispered shrilly; and out from behind the screen slipped Rafe, the smallest of them all, and down the stage to speak the foreword of the piece. He was frightened, and his voice shook as he spoke, but every one was smiling, so he took new heart.

“It is a masque of Summer-time and Spring,” said he, “wherein both claim to be best-loved, and have their say of wit and humor, and each her part of songs and dances suited to her time, the sprightly galliard and the nimble jig for Spring, the slow pavone, the stately peacock dance, for Summer-time. And win who may, fair Summer-time or merry Spring, the winner is but that beside our Queen!”—with which he snapped his fingers in the faces of them all—“God save Queen Bess!”

At that the Queen’s eyes twinkled, and she nodded, highly pleased, so that every one clapped mightily.

The play soon ran its course amid great laughter and applause. Spring won. The English ever loved her best, and the quick-paced galliard took their fancy, too. “Up and be doing!” was its tune, and it gave one a chance to cut fine capers with his heels.

Then the stage stood empty and the music stopped.

At this strange end a whisper of surprise ran through the hall. The Queen tapped with the inner side of her rings upon the broad arm of her chair. From the look on her face she was whetting her tongue. But before she could speak, Nick and Colley, dressed as a farmer boy and girl, with a garland of house-grown flowers about them, came down the stage from the arras, hand in hand, bowing.

The audience-chamber grew very still—this was something new. Nick felt a swallowing in his throat, and Colley’s hand winced in his grip. There was no sound but a silky rustling in the room.

Then suddenly the boys behind the players’ curtain laughed together, not loud, but such a jolly little laugh that all the people smiled to hear it. After the laughter came a hush.

Then the pipes overhead made a merry sound as of shepherds piping on oaten straws in new grass where there are daisies; and there was a little elfish laughter of clarionets, and a fluttering among the cool flutes like spring wind blowing through crisp young leaves in April. The harps began to pulse and throb with a soft cadence like raindrops falling into a clear pool where brown leaves lie upon the bottom and bubbles float above green stones and smooth white pebbles. Nick lifted up his head and sang.

It was a happy little song of the coming and the triumph of the spring. The words were all forgotten long ago. They were not much: enough to serve the turn, no more; but the notes to which they went were like barn swallows twittering under the eaves, goldfinches clinking in purple weeds beside old roads, and robins singing in common gardens at dawn. And wherever Nick’s voice ran Colley’s followed, the pipes laughing after them a note or two below; while the flutes kept gurgling softly to themselves as a hill brook gurgles through the woods, and the harps ran gently up and down like rain among the daffodils. One voice called, the other answered; there were echo-like refrains; and as they sang Nick’s heart grew full. He cared not a stiver for the crowd, the golden palace, or the great folk there—the Queen no more—he only listened for Colley’s voice coming up lovingly after his own and running away when he followed it down, like a lad and a lass through the bloom of the May. And Colley was singing as if his heart would leap out of his round mouth for joy to follow after the song they sung, till they came to the end and the skylark’s song.

There Colley ceased, and Nick went singing on alone, forgetting, caring for, heeding nought but the song that was in his throat.

The Queen’s fan dropped from her hand upon the floor. No one saw it or picked it up. The Venetian ambassador scarcely breathed.

Nick came down the stage, his hands before him, lifted as if he saw the very lark he followed with his song, up, up, up into the sun. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were wet, though his voice was a song and a laugh in one.

Then they were gone behind the curtain, into the shadow and the twilight there, Colley with his arms about Nick’s neck, not quite laughing, not quite sobbing. The manuscript of the Revel lay torn in two upon the floor, and Master Gyles had a foot upon each piece.

In the hall beyond the curtain was a silence that was deeper than a hush, a stillness rising from the hearts of men.

Then Elizabeth turned in the chair where she sat. Her eyes were as bright as a blaze. And out of the sides of her eyes she looked at the Venetian ambassador. He was sitting far out on the edge of his chair, and his lips had fallen apart. She laughed to herself. “It is a good song, signor,” said she, and those about her started at the sound of her voice. “Chi tace confessa—it is so! There are no songs like English songs—there is no spring like an English spring—there is no land like England, my England!” She clapped her hands. “I will speak with those lads,” said she.

Straightway certain pages ran through the press and came behind the curtain where Nick and Colley stood together, still trembling with the music not yet gone out of them, and brought them through the hall to where the Queen sat, every one whispering, “Look!” as they passed.

On the dais they knelt together, bowing, side by side. Elizabeth, with a kindly smile, leaning a little forward, raised them with her slender hand. “Stand, dear lads,” said she, heartily. “Be lifted up by thine own singing, as our hearts have been uplifted by thy song. And name me the price of that same song—’twas sweeter than the sweetest song we ever heard before.”

“Or ever shall hear again,” said the Venetian ambassador, under his breath, rubbing his forehead as if just wakening out of a dream.

“Come,” said Elizabeth, tapping Colley’s cheek with her fan, “what wilt thou have of me, fair maid?”

Colley turned red, then very pale. “That I may stay in the palace forever and sing for your Majesty,” said he. His fingers shivered in Nick’s.

“Now that is right prettily asked,” she cried, and was well pleased. “Thou shalt indeed stay for a singing page in our household—a voice and a face like thine are merry things upon a rainy Monday. And thou, Master Lark,” said she, fanning the hair back from Nick’s forehead with her perfumed fan—“thou that comest up out of the field with a song like the angels sing—what wilt thou have: that thou mayst sing in our choir and play on the lute for us?”

Nick looked up at the torches on the wall, drawing a deep, long breath. When he looked down again his eyes were dazzled and he could not see the Queen.

“What wilt thou have?” he heard her ask.

“Let me go home,” said he.

There were red and green spots in the air. He tried to count them, since he could see nothing else, and everything was very still; but they all ran into one purple spot which came and went like a firefly’s glow, and in the middle of the purple spot he saw the Queen’s face coming and going.

“Surely, boy, that is an ill-considered speech,” said she, “or thou dost deem us very poor, or most exceeding stingy!” Nick hung his head, for the walls seemed tapestried with staring eyes. “Or else this home of thine must be a very famous place.”

The maids of honour tittered. Further off somebody laughed. Nick looked up, and squared his shoulders.

They had rubbed the cat the wrong way.

It is hard to be a stranger in a palace, young, country-bred, and laughed at all at once; but down in Nick Attwood’s heart was a stubborn streak that all the flattery on earth could not cajole nor ridicule efface. He might be simple, shy, and slow, but what he loved he loved: that much he knew; and when they laughed at him for loving home they seemed to mock not him, but home—and that touched the fighting-spot.

“I would rather be there than here,” said he.

The Queen’s face flushed. “Thou art more curt than courteous,” said she. “Is it not good enough for thee here?”

“I could na live in such a place.”

The Queen’s eyes snapped. “In such a place? Marry, art thou so choice? These others find no fault with the life.”

“Then they be born to it,” said Nick, “or they could abide no more than I—they would na fit.”

“Haw, haw!” said the Lord High Constable.

The Queen shot one quick glance at him. “Old pegs have been made to fit new holes before to-day,” said she; “and the trick can be done again.” The Constable smothered the rest of that laugh in his hand, “But come, boy, speak up; what hath put thee so out of conceit with our best-beloved palace?”

“There is na one thing likes me here. I can na bide in a place so fine, for there’s not so much as a corner in it feels like home. I could na sleep in the bed last night.”

“What, how? We commanded good beds!” exclaimed Elizabeth, angrily, for the Venetian ambassador was smiling in his beard. “This shall be seen to.”

“Oh, it was a good bed—a very good bed indeed, your Majesty!” cried Nick. “But the mattress puffed up like a cloud in a bag, and almost smothered me; and it was so soft and so hot that it gave me a fever.”

Elizabeth leaned back in her chair and laughed. The Lord High Constable hastily finished the laugh that he had hidden in his hand. Everybody laughed. “Upon my word,” said the Queen, “it is an odd skylark cannot sleep in feathers! What didst thou do, forsooth?”

“I slept in the coverlid on the floor,” said Nick. “It was na hurt,—I dusted the place well,—and I slept like a top.”

“Now verily,” laughed Elizabeth, “if it be floors that thou dost desire, we have acres to spare—thou shalt have thy pick of the lot. Come, we are ill used to begging people to be favored—thou’lt stay?”

Nick shook his head.

“Ma foi!” exclaimed the Queen, “it is a queer fancy makes a face at such a pleasant dwelling! What is it sticks in thy throat?”

Nick stood silent. What was there to say? If he came here he never would see Stratford town again; and this was no abiding-place for him. They would not even let him go to the fountain himself to draw water with which to wash,