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

while the waiter ran to open the gate and let the stranger in.

A quiet man with a little chestnut-colored beard and hazel eyes, which lit up quickly at sight of the stranger over the hedge, arose from his place by the table and went down the path with hands outstretched to greet him.

“Welcome, welcome, hurly-burly Ben,” said he. “We’ve missed thee from the feast. Art well? And what’s the good word?”

“Ah, Will, thou gentle rogue!” the other cried, catching the hands of the quiet man and holding him off while he looked at him there. “How thou stealest one’s heart with the glance of thine eye! I was going to give thee a piece of my mind; but a plague, old heart! who could chide thee to thy face? Am I well? Ay, exceedingly well. And the news? Jove! the best that was baked at the Queen’s to-day, and straight from the oven-door! The thing is done—huff, puff, and away we go! But come on—this needs telling to the rest.”

They came up the path together, the big man crunching the mussel-shells beneath his sturdy tread, and so into the circle of yellow light that came down from the lantern among the apple-leaves, the big man with his arm around the quiet man’s shoulders, holding his hand; for the quiet man was not so large as the other, although withal no little man himself, and very well built and straight.

His tabard was black, without sleeves, and his doublet was scarlet silk. His collar and wrist-bands were white Holland linen turned loosely back, and his face was frank and fair and free. He was not old, but his hair was thin upon his brow. His nose and his full, high forehead were as cleanly cut as a finely chiseled stone; and his sensitive mouth had a curve that was tender and sad, though he smiled all the while, a glimpse of his white teeth showing through, and his little mustache twitching with the ripple of his long upper lip. His flowing hair was chestnut-colored, like his beard, and curly at the ends; and his melancholy eyelids told of study and of thought; but under them the kindly eyes were bright with pleasant fancy.

“What, there, all of you!” said he; “a good investment for your ears!”

“Out with it, Will!” they cried, and whirled around.

“The Queen hath made Lord Hunsdon chamberlain,” the big man said.

An instant’s hush fell on the garden. No one spoke; but they caught each other by the hand, and, suddenly, the silence there seemed somehow louder than a shout.

“We’ll build the new Globe play-house, lads, and sweep the Bankside clean from end to end!” a sturdy voice broke sharply on the hush. And then they cheered—a cheer so loud that people on the river stopped their boats, and came ashore asking where the fire was. And over all the cheering rose the big man’s voice; for the quiet man was silent, and the big man cheered for two.

“Pull up thy rose-bushes, Will,” cried one, “and set out laurels in their stead—thou’lt need them all for crowns.”

“Ay, Will, our savor is not gone—Queen Bess knows salt!”

“With Will and Ben for meat and crust, and the rest of us for seasoning, the court shall say it never ate such master pie!”

“We’ll make the walls of Whitehall ring come New Year next, or Twelfth Night and Shrove Tuesday.”

“Ay, that we will, old gossip! Here’s to thee!”

“Here’s to the company, all of us!”

“And a health to the new Lord Chamberlain!”

“God save the Queen!”

With that, they shook each other’s hands, as merry as men could be, and laughed, because their hearts ran short of words; for these were young Lord Hunsdon’s men, late players to the Queen in the old Lord Chamberlain’s troupe; who, for a while deprived of favor by his death, were now, by this succession of his son, restored to prestige at the court, and such preferment as none beside them ever won, not even the Earl of Pembroke’s company.

There was Kemp, the stout tragedian; gray John Lowin, the walking-man; Diccon Burbage, and Cuthbert his brother, master-players and managers; Robin Armin, the humorsome jester; droll Dick Tarlton, the king of fools. There was Blount, and Pope, and Hemynge, and Thomas Greene, and Joey Taylor, the acting-boy, deep in the heart of a honey-bowl, yet who one day was to play “Hamlet” as no man ever has played it since. And there were others, whose names and doings have vanished with them; and beside these—“What, merry hearts!” the big man cried, and clapped his neighbor on the back; “we’ll have a supper at the Mermaid Inn. We’ll feast on reason, reason on the feast, toast the company with wit, and company the wit with toast—why, pshaw, we are good fellows all!” He laughed, and they laughed with him. That was “rare Ben Jonson’s” way.

“There’s some one knocking, master,” said the boy.

A quick tap-tapping rattled on the wicket-gate.

“Who is it?” asked the quiet man.

“’Tis Edmund with the news,” cried one.

“I’ve dished him,” said Ben Jonson.

“’Tis Condell come to raise our wages,” said Robin Armin, with a grin.

“Thou’lt raise more hopes than wages, Rob,” said Tarlton, mockingly.

“It is a boy,” the waiter said, “who saith that he must see thee, master, on his life.”

The quiet man arose.

“Sit down, Will,” said Greene; “he’ll pick thy pocket with a doleful lie.”

“There’s nothing in it, Tom, to pick.”

“Then give him no more than half,” said Armin, soberly, “lest he squander it!”

“He saith he comes from Stratford town,” the boy went on.

“Then tell him to go back again,” said Master Ben Jonson; “we’ve sucked the sweet from Stratford town—be off with his seedy dregs!”

“Go bring him in,” said the quiet man.

“Nay, Will, don’t have him in. This makes the third within the month—wilt father all the strays from Stratford town? Here, Ned, give him this shilling, and tell him to be off to his cony-burrow as fast as his legs can trot.”

“We’ll see him first,” said the quiet man, stopping the other’s shilling with his hand.

“Oh, Willy-nilly!” the big man cried; “wilt be a kite to float all the draggle-tails that flutter down from Warwickshire?”

“Why, Ben,” replied the quiet man, “’tis not the kite that floats the tail, but the wind which floats both kite and tail. Thank God, we’ve caught the rising wind; so, hey for draggle-tails!—we’ll take up all we can.”

The waiter was coming up the path, and by his side, a little back, bareheaded and flushed with running, came Nicholas Attwood. He had followed the big man through the fields from the gates of the Falcon Inn.

He stopped at the edge of the lantern’s glow and looked around uncertain, for the light was in his eyes.

“Come, boy, what is it?” asked Ben Jonson.

Nick peered through the brightness. “Master Will—Master Will Shakspere!” he gasped.

“Well, my lady,” said the quiet man; “what wilt thou have of me?”

Nick Attwood had come to his fellow-townsman at last.

Over the hedge where the lantern shone through the green of the apple-leaves came a sound of voices talking fast, a listening hush, then a clapping of hands, with mingled cries of “Good boy!” “Right, lad; do not leave her till thou must!” and at the last, “What! take thee home to thy mother, lad? Ay, marry, that will I!” And the last was the voice of the quiet man.

Then followed laughter and scraps of song, merry talking, and good cheer, for they all made glad together.

Across the fields beyond the hedge the pathway ran through Paris Garden, stark and clear in the white moon-shine, save here and there where the fog from the marsh crept down to meet the river-mist, and blotted out the landscape as it went. In the north lay London, stirring like a troubled sea. In the south was drowsy silence, save for the crowing of the cocks, and now and then the baying of a hound far off. The smell of bears was on the air; the river-wind breathed kennels. The Swan play-house stood up, a great, blue blank against the sky. The sound of voices was remote. The river made a constant murmur in the murk beyond the landing-place; the trees moved softly.

Low in the west, the lights of the Falcon Inn were shrunk to pin-pricks in the dark. They seemed to wink and to shut their eyes. It was too far to see the people passing by.

On a sudden one light winked and did not open any more; and through the night a faint, far cry came drifting down the river-wind—a long, thin cry, like the wavering screech of an owl—a shrill, high, ugly sound; the lights began to wink, wink, wink, to dance, to shift, to gather into one red star. Out of the darkness came a wisp of something moving in the path.

Where the moonlight lay it scudded like the shadow of a windy cloud, now lost to sight, now seen again. Out of the shadow came a man, with hands outstretched and cap awry, running as if he were mad. As he ran he looked from side to side, and turned his head for the keener ear. He was panting hard.

When he reached the ditch he paused in fault, ran on a step or two, went back, stood hesitating there, clenching his hands in the empty wind, listening; for the mist was grown so thick that he could scarcely see.

But as he stood there doubtfully, uncertain of the way, catching the wind in his nervous hands, and turning about in a little space like an animal in a cage, over the hedge through the apple-boughs a boy’s clear voice rose suddenly, singing a rollicking tune, with a snapping of fingers and tapping of feet in time to its merry lilt.

Then the man in the mist, when he heard that clear, high voice, turned swiftly to it, crying out, “The Skylark! Zooks! It is the place!” and ran through the fog to where the lantern glimmered through the hedge. The light fell in a yellow stream across his face. He was pale as a ghost. “What, there, within! What, there!” he panted. “Shakspere! Jonson! Any one!”

The song stopped short. “Who’s there?” called the voice of the quiet man.

“’Tis I, Tom Heywood. There’s to-do for players at the Falcon Inn. Gaston Carew hath stabbed Fulk Sandells, for cheating at the dice, as dead as a door-nail, and hath been taken by the watch!”