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

the tap-room door, munching a savory mutton-pie which Tommy Webster had bought for them. Beside them over the window-sill the tapster twirled his spigot cheerfully, and in the door the carrier was bidding the serving-maids good-by.

Around the inn-yard stood a row of heavy, canvas-covered wains and lumbering two-wheeled carts, each surmounted by a well-armed guard, and drawn by six strong horses with harness stout as cannon-leathers. The hostlers stood at the horses’ heads, chewing at wisps of barley-straw as though their other fare was scant, which, from their sleek rotundity, was difficult to believe. The stable-boy, with a pot of slush, and a head of hair like a last year’s haycock, was hastily greasing a forgotten wheel; while, out of the room where the servants ate, the drivers came stumbling down the steps with a mighty smell of onions and brawn. The weekly train from London into the north was ready to be off.

A portly, well-clad countryman, with a shrewd but good-humored countenance, and a wife beside him round and rosy of face as he, came bustling out of the private door. “How far yet, Master John?” he asked as he buckled on his cloak. “Forty-two miles to Oxford, sir,” replied the carrier. “We must be off if we’re to lie at Uxbridge overnight; for there hath been rain beyond, sir, and the roads be werry deep.”

Nick stared at the man for Oxford. Forty-two miles to Oxford! And Oxford lay to the south of Stratford fifty miles and two. Ninety-four miles from Stratford town! Ninety-four miles from home!

“When will my father come for us, Nick?” asked Cicely, turning her hand in the sun to see the red along the edges of her fingers.

“Indeed, I can na tell,” said Nick; “Master Will Shakspere is coming anon, and I shall go with him.”

“And leave me by myself?”

“Nay; thou shalt go, too. Thou’lt love to see his garden and the rose-trees—it is like a very country place. He is a merry gentleman, and, oh, so kind! He is going to take me home.”

“But my father will take us home when he comes.”

“To Stratford town, I mean.”

“Away from daddy and me? Why, Nick!”

“But my mother is in Stratford town.”

Cicely was silent. “Then I think I would go, too,” she said quite softly, looking down as if there were a picture on the ground. “When one’s mother is gone there is a hurting-place that nought doth ever come into any more—excepting daddy, and—and thee. We shall miss thee, Nick, at supper-times. Thou’lt come back soon?”

“I am na coming back.”

“Not coming back?” She laid the mutton-pie down on the bench.

“No—I am na coming back”

“Never?”

“Never.”

She looked at him as if she had not altogether understood.

Nick turned away. A strange uneasiness had come upon him, as if some one were staring at him fixedly. But no one was. There was a Dutchman in the gate who had not been there just before. “He must have sprung up out of the ground,” thought Nick, “or else he is a very sudden Dutchman!” He had on breeches like two great meal-sacks, and a Flemish sea-cloth jacket full of wrinkles, as if it had been lying in a chest. His back was turned, and Nick could not help smiling, for the fellow’s shanks came out of his breeches’ bottoms like the legs of a letter A. He looked like a pudding on two skewers.

Cicely slowly took up the mutton-pie once more, but did not eat. “Is na the pasty good?” asked Nick.

“Not now,” said she.

Nick turned away again.

The Dutchman was not in the gate. He had crossed the inn-yard suddenly, and was sitting close within the shadow of the wall, though the sunny side was pleasanter by far. His wig was hanging down about his face, and he was talking with the tapster’s knave, a hungry-looking fellow clad in rusty black as if some one were dead, although it was a holiday and he had neither kith nor kin. The knave was biting his under lip and staring straight at Nick.

“And will I never see thee more?” asked Cicely.

“Oh, yes,” said Nick; “oh, yes.”

But he did not know whether she ever would or no.

“Gee-wup, Dobbin! Yoicks, Ned! Tschk—tschk!” The leading cart rolled slowly through the gate. A second followed it. The drivers made a cracking with their whips, and all the guests came out to see them off. But the Dutchman, as the rest came out, arose, and with the tapster’s knave went in at a narrow entrance beyond the tap-room steps.

“And when will Master Shakspere come for thee?” asked Cicely once more, the cold pie lying in her lap.

“I do na know. How can I tell? Do na bother me so!” cried Nick, and dug his heels into the cracks between the paving-stones; for after all that had come to pass the starting of the baggage-train had made him sick for home.

Cicely looked up at him; she thought she had not heard aright. He was staring after the last cart as it rolled through the inn-yard gate; his throat was working, and his eyes were full of tears.

“Why, Nick!” said she, “art crying?”

“Nay,” said he, “but very near,” and dashed his hand across his face. “Everything doth happen so all-at-once—and I am na big enough, Cicely. Oh, Cicely, I would I were a mighty king—I’d make it all up different somehow!”

“Perhaps thou wilt be some day, Nick,” she answered quietly. “Thou’ldst make a very lovely king. I could be queen; and daddy should be Lord Admiral, and own the finest play-house in the town.”

But Nick was staring at the tap-room door. A voice somewhere had startled him. The guests were gone, and none was left but the tapster’s knave leaning against the inner wall.

“Thy mother should come to live with us, and thy father, and all thy kin,” said Cicely, dreamily smiling; “and the people would love us, there would be no more war, and we should be happy forevermore.”

But Nick was listening,—not to her,—and his face was a little pale. He felt a strange, uneasy sense of some one staring at his back. He whirled about—looked in at the tap-room window. For an instant a peering face was there; then it was gone—there was only the Dutchman’s frowzy wig and striped woolen cap. But the voice he had heard and the face he had seen were the voice and the face of Gregory Goole.

“I should love to see thy mother, Nick,” said Cicely.

He got up steadily, though his heart was jolting his very ribs. “Thou shalt right speedily!” said he.

The carts were standing in a line. The carrier came down the steps with his stirrup-cup in hand. Nick’s heart gave a sudden, wild, resolute leap, and he touched the carrier on the arm. “What will ye charge to carry two as far as Stratford town?” he asked. His mouth was dry as a dusty road, for the Dutchman had risen from his seat and was coming toward the door.

“I do na haul past Oxford,” said the man.

“To Oxford, then—how much? Be quick!” Nick thrust his hand into his breast where he carried the burgesses’ chain.

“Eightpence the day, for three days out—two shilling ’tis, and find yourself; it is an honest fare.”

The tapster’s knave came down the steps; the Dutchman stood within the shadow of the door.

“Wilt carry us for this?” Nick cried, and thrust the chain into the fellow’s hands.

He gasped and almost let it fall. “Beshrew my heart! Gadzooks!” said he, “art thou a prince in hiding, boy? ’T would buy me, horses, wains, and all. Why, man alive, ’tis but a nip o’ this!”

“Good, then,” said Nick, “’tis done—we’ll go. Come, Cicely, we’re going home!”

Staring, the carrier followed him, weighing the chain in his hairy hand. “Who art thou, boy?” he cried again. “This matter hath a queer look.”

“’Twas honestly come by, sir,” cried Nick, no longer able to conceal a quiver in his voice, “and my name is Nicholas Attwood; I come from Stratford town.”

“Stratford-on-Avon? Why, art kin to Tanner Simon Attwood there, Attwood of Old Town?”

“He is my father, sir. Oh, leave us go with thee—take the whole chain!”

Slap went the carrier’s cap in the dirt! “Leave thee go wi’ me? Gadzooks!” he cried, “my name be John Saddler—why, what? my daddy liveth in Chapel lane, behind Will Underhill’s. I stole thy father’s apples fifteen years. What! go wi’ me? Get on the wain, thou little fool—get on all the wains I own, and a plague upon thine eightpence, lad! Why, here; Hal telled me thou wert dead, or lost, or some such fairy tale! Up on the sheepskin, both o’ ye!”

The Dutchman came from the tap-room door and spoke to the tapster’s knave; but the words which he spoke to that tapster’s knave were anything but Dutch.