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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And though, for the most part, he said but little, save when some pet fancy moved him, when he did speak his conversation sparkled like a little meadow brook that drew men’s best thoughts out of them like water from a spring.
And when they fell to bantering, he could turn the fag-end of another man’s nothing to good account in a way so shrewd that not even Master Ben Jonson could better him—and Master Ben Jonson set up for a wit. But Master Shakspere came about as quickly as an English man-of-war, dodged here and there on a breath of wind, and seemed quite everywhere at once; while Master Jonson tacked and veered, and loomed across the elements like a great galleon, pouring forth learned broadsides with a most prodigious boom, riddling whatever was in the way, to be sure, but often quite missing the point—because Master Shakspere had come about, hey, presto, change! and was off with the argument, point and all, upon a totally different tack.
Then “Tush!” and “Fie upon thee, Will!” Master Jonson would cry with his great bluff-hearted laugh, “thou art a regular flibbertigibbet! I’ll catch thee napping yet, old heart, and fill thee so full of pepper-holes that thou wilt leak epigrams. But quits—I must be home, or I shall catch it from my wife. Faith, Will, thou shouldst see my little Ben!”
“I’ll come some day,” Master Shakspere would say; “give him my love”; and his mouth would smile, though his eyes were sad, for his own son Hamnet was dead.
Then, when the house was still again, and all had said good-by, Nick doffed his clothes and laid him down to sleep in peace. Yet he often wakened in the night, because his heart was dancing so.
In the morning, when the world began to stir outside, and the early light came in at the window, he slipped out of bed across the floor, and threw the casement wide. Over the river, and over the town, and over the hills that lay blue in the north, was Stratford!
The damp, cool air from the garden below seemed a primrose whiff from the lane behind his father’s house. He could hear the cocks crowing in Surrey, and the lowing of the kine. There was a robin singing in a bush under the window, and there was some one in the garden with a pair of pruning-shears. Snip-snip! snip-snip! he heard them going. The light in the east was pink as a peach-bloom and too intense to bear.
“Good-morrow, Master Early-bird!” a merry voice called up to him, and a nosegay dropped on the window-ledge at his side. He looked down. There in the path among the rose-trees was Master Will Shakspere, laughing. He had on an ancient leathern jacket and a hat with a hole in its crown; and the skirts of the jacket were dripping with dew from the bushes.
“Good-morrow, sir,” said Nick, and bowed. “It is a lovely day.”
“Most beautiful indeed! How comes the sun?”
“Just up, sir; the river is afire with it now. O-oh!” Nick held his breath, and watched the light creep down the wall, darting long bars of rosy gold through the snowy bloom of the apple-trees, until it rested upon Master Shakspere’s face, and made a fleeting glory there.
Then Master Shakspere stretched himself a little in the sun, laughing softly, and said, “It is the sweetest music in the world—morning, spring, and God’s dear sunshine; it starteth kindness brewing in the heart, like sap in a withered bud. What sayest, lad? We’ll fetch the little maid to-day; and then—away for Stratford town!”
But when Master Shakspere and Nicholas Attwood came to Gaston Carew’s house, the constables had taken charge, the servants were scattering hither and thither, and Cicely Carew was gone.
The bandy-legged man, the butler said, had come on Sunday in great haste, and packing up his goods, without a word of what had befallen his master, had gone away, no one knew whither, and had taken Cicely with him. Nor had they questioned what he did, for they all feared the rogue, and judged him to have authority.
Nick caught a moment at the lintel of the door. The house was full of voices, and the sound of trampling feet went up and down from room to room; but all he heard was Gaston Carew’s worn voice saying, “Thou’lt keep my Cicely from harm?”
THE BANDY-LEGGED MAN
Until night fell they sought the town over for a trace of Cicely; but all to no avail. The second day likewise.
The third day passed, and still there were no tidings. Master Shakspere’s face grew very grave, and Nick’s heart sickened till he quite forgot that he was going home.
But on the morning of the fourth day, which chanced to be the 1st of May, as he was standing in the door of a printer’s stall in St. Paul’s Churchyard, watching the gaily dressed holiday crowds go up and down, while Robin Dexter’s apprentices bound white-thorn boughs about the brazen serpent overhead, he spied the bandy-legged man among the rout that passed the north gate by St. Martin’s le Grand.
He had a yellow ribbon in his ear, and wore a bright plum-colored cloak, at sight of which Nick cried aloud, for it was the very cloak which Master Gaston Carew wore when he first met him in the Warwick road. The rogue was making for the way which ran from Cheapside to the river, and was walking very fast.
“Master Shakspere! Master Shakspere!” Nick called out. But Master Shakspere was deep in the proofs of a newly published play, and did not hear.
The yellow ribbon fluttered in the sun—was gone behind the churchyard wall.
“Quick, Master Shakspere! quick!” Nick cried; but the master-writer frowned at the inky page; for the light in the printer’s shop was dim, and the proof was very bad.
The ribbon was gone down the river-way—and with it the hope of finding Cicely. Nick shot one look into the stall. Master Shakspere, deep in his proofs, was deaf to the world outside. Nick ran to the gate at the top of his speed. In the crowd afar off a yellow spot went fluttering like a butterfly along a country road. Without a single second thought, he followed it as fast as his legs could go.
Twice he lost it in the throng. But the yellow patch bobbed up again in the sunlight far beyond, and led him on, and on, and on, a breathless chase, down empty lanes and alley-ways, through unfrequented courts, among the warehouses and wharf-sheds along the river-front, into the kennels of Billingsgate, where the only sky was a ragged slit between the leaning roofs. His heart sank low and lower as they went, for only thieves and runagates who dared not face the day in honest streets were gathered in wards like these.
In a filthy purlieu under Fish-street Hill, where mackerel-heads and herrings strewed the drains, and sour kits of whitebait stood fermenting in the sun, the bandy-legged man turned suddenly into a dingy court, and when Nick reached the corner of the entry-way was gone as though the earth had swallowed him.
Nick stopped dismayed, and looked about, His forehead was wet and his breath was gone. He had no idea where they were, but it was a dismal hole. Six forbidding doorways led off from the unkempt court, and a rotting stairway sagged along the wall. A crop-eared dog, that lay in the sun beside a broken cart, sprang up with its hair all pointing to its head, and snarled at him with a vicious grin. “Begone, thou cur!” he cried, and let drive with a stone. The dog ran under the cart, and crouched there barking at him.
Through an open door beyond there came a sound of voices as of people in some further thoroughfare. Perchance the bandy-legged man had passed that way? He ran across the court, and up the steps; but came back faster than he went, for the passageway there was blind and black, a place unspeakable for dirt, and filled with people past description. A woman peered out after him with red eyes blinking in the sun. “Ods bobs!” she croaked, “a pretty thing! Come hither, knave; I want the buckle off thy cloak.”
Nick, shuddering, started for the street. But just as he reached the entry-port a door in the courtyard opened, and the bandy-legged man came out with a bag upon his back, leading Cicely by the hand.
Seeing Nick, he gave a cry, believing himself pursued, and made for the open door again; but almost instantly perceiving the boy to be alone, slammed shut the door and followed him instead, dragging Cicely over the stones, and shouting hoarsely, “Stop there! stop!”
Nick’s heart came up in his very throat. His legs went water-weak. He ran for the open thoroughfare without once looking back. Yet while he ran he heard Cicely cry out suddenly in pain, “Oh, Gregory, Gregory, thou art hurting me so!” and at the sound the voice of Gaston Carew rang like a bugle in his ears: “Thou’lt keep my Cicely from harm?” He stopped as short as if he had butted his head against a wall, whirled on his heel, stood fast, though he was much afraid; and standing there, his head thrown back and his fists tight clenched, as if some one had struck him in the face, he waited until they came to where he was. “Thou hulking, cowardly rogue!” said he to the bandy-legged man.
But the bandy-legged man caught him fast by the arm, and hurried on into the street, scanning it swiftly up and down. “Two birds with one stone, by hen!” he chuckled, when he saw that the coast was clear. “They’ll fetch a pretty penny by and by.”
Poor Cicely smiled through her tears at Nick. “I knew thou wouldst come for me soon,” said she. “But where is my father?”
“He’s dead as a herring,” snarled Gregory.
“That’s a lie,” said Nick; “he is na dead.”
“Don’t call me liar, knave—by hen, I’ll put a stopper on thy voice!”
“Thou wilt na put a stopper on a jug!” cried Nick, his heart so hot for Cicely that he quite forgot himself. “I’d sing so well without a voice—it would butter thy bread for thee! Loose my arm, thou rogue.”
“Not for a thousand golden crowns! I’m no tom-noddy, to be gulled. And, hark ’e, be less glib with that ‘rogue’ of thine, or I’ll baste thy back for thee.”
“Oh, don’t beat Nick!” gasped Cicely.
“Do na fret for me,” said Nick; “I be na feared of the cowardly rogue!”
Crack! the man struck him across the face. Nick’s eyes flashed hot as a fire-coal. He set his teeth, but he did not flinch. “Do na thou strike me again, thou rogue!” said he.
As he spoke, on a sudden his heart leaped up and his fear was utterly gone. In its place was a something fierce and strange—a bitter gladness, a joy that stung and thrilled him like great music in the night. A tingling ran from head to foot; the little hairs of his flesh stood up; he trampled the stones as he hurried on. In his breast his heart was beating like a bell; his breath came hotly, deep and slow; the whole world widened on his gaze. Oh, what a thing is the heart of a boy! how quickly great things are done therein! One instant, put him to the touch—the thing is done, and he is nevermore the same. Like a keen, cold wind that blows through a window in the night, life’s courage had breathed on Nick Attwood’s heart; the man that slept in the heart of the boy awoke and was aware. The old song roared in Nick’s ears:
Round the world, round the world;
John Hawkins fought the “Victory,”
And we ha’ beaten Spain!
Whither they were going he did not know. Whither they were going he did not care. He was English: this was England still! He set his teeth and threw back his shoulders. “I be na feared of him!” said he.
“But my father will come for us soon, won’t he, Nick?” faltered Cicely.
“Eigh! just don’t he wish that he might!” laughed Goole.
“Oh, ay,” said she, and nodded bravely to herself; “he may be very busy now, and so he cannot come. But presently he will come for me and fetch me home again.” She gave a joyous little skip. “To fetch me home again—ay, surely, my father will come for me anon.”
A lump came up in Nick Attwood’s throat. “But what hath he done to thee, Cicely, and where is thy pretty
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