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

thy cues, or—tsst, thy head’s not worth a peascod!” With that he clapped his hand upon his poniard and glared into Nick’s eyes, as if to look clear through to the back of the boy’s wits. Nick heard his white teeth grind, and was all at once very much afraid of him, for he did indeed look dreadful.

So Nicholas Attwood stood by the entry door, with his heart in his throat, waiting his turn.

He could hear the pages in the courtyard outside shouting for stools for their masters, and squabbling over the best places upon the stage. Then the gates creaked, and there came a wild rush of feet and a great crying out as the ’prentices and burghers trooped into the inn-yard, pushing and crowding for places near the stage. Those who had the money bawled aloud for farthing stools. The rest stood jostling in a wrangling crowd upon the ground, while up and down a girl’s shrill voice went all the time, crying high, “Cherry ripe, cherry ripe! Who’ll buy my sweet May cherries?”

Then there was another shout, and a rattling tread of feet along the wooden balconies that ran around the walls of the inn-yard, and cries from the apprentices below: “Good-day, fair Master Harrington! Good-day, Sir Thomas Parkes! Good-day, sweet Mistress Nettleby and Master Nettleby! Good-day, good-day, good-day!” for the richer folk were coming in at twopence each, and all the galleries were full. And then he heard the baker’s boy with sugared cakes and ginger-nuts go stamping up the stairs.

The musicians in the balcony overhead were tuning up. There was a flute, a viol, a gittern, a fiddle, and a drum; and behind the curtain, just outside the door, Nick could hear the master-player’s low voice giving hasty orders to the others.

So he said his lines all over to himself, and cleared his throat. Then on a sudden a shutter opened high above the orchestra, a trumpet blared, the kettledrum crashed, and he heard a loud voice shout:

“Good citizens of Coventry, and high-born gentles all: know ye now that we, the players of the company of His Grace, Charles, Lord Howard, High Admiral of England, Ireland, Wales, Calais, and Boulogne, the marches of Normandy, Gascony, and Aquitaine, Captain-General of the Navy and the Seas of Her Gracious Majesty the Queen—”

At that the crowd in the courtyard cheered and cheered again.

“—will, with your kind permission, play forthwith the laughable comedy of ‘The Three Grey Gowns,’ by Master Thomas Heywood, in which will be spoken many good things, old and new, and a brand-new song will be sung. Now, hearken all—the play begins!”

The trumpet blared, the kettledrum crashed again, and as a sudden hush fell over the throng without Nick heard the voices of the players going on.

It was a broad farce, full of loud jests and nonsense, a great thwacking of sticks and tumbling about; and Nick, with his eye to the crack of the door, listened with all his ears for his cue, far too excited even to think of laughing at the rough jokes, though the crowd in the inn-yard roared till they held their sides.

Carew came hurrying up, with an anxious look in his restless eyes.

“Ready, Nicholas!” said he, sharply, taking Nick by the arm and lifting the latch. “Go straight down front now as I told thee—mind thy cues—speak boldly—sing as thou didst sing for me—and if thou wouldst not break mine heart, do not fail me now! I have staked it all upon thee here—and we must win!”

“How now, who comes?” Nick heard a loud voice call outside—the door-latch clicked behind him—he was out in the open air and down the stage before he quite knew where he was.

The stage was built against the wall just opposite the gates. It was but a temporary platform of planks laid upon trestles. One side of it was against the wall, and around the three other sides the crowd was packed close to the platform rail.

At the ends, upon the boards, several wealthy gallants sat on high, three-legged stools, within arm’s reach of the players acting there. The courtyard was a sea of heads, and the balconies were filled with gentlefolk in holiday attire, eating cakes and chaffing gaily at the play. All was one bewildered cloud of staring eyes to Nick, and the only thing which he was sure he saw was the painted sign that hung upon the curtain at the rear, which in the lack of other scenery announced in large red print: “This is a Room in Master Jonah Jackdawe’s House.”

And then he heard the last quick words, “I’ll match him for the ale!” and started on his lines.

It was not that he said so ill what little he had to say, but that his voice was homelike and familiar in its sound, one of their own, with no amazing London accent to the words—just the speech of every-day, the sort that they all knew.

First, some one in the yard laughed out—a shock-headed ironmonger’s apprentice, “Whoy, bullies, there be hayseed in his hair. ’Tis took off pasture over-soon. I fecks! they’ve plucked him green!”

There was a hoarse, exasperating laugh. Nick hesitated in his lines. The player at his back tried to prompt him, but only made the matter worse, and behind the green curtain at the door a hand went “clap” upon a dagger-hilt. The play lagged, and the crowd began to jeer. Nick’s heart was full of fear and of angry shame that he had dared to try. Then all at once there came a brief pause, in which he vaguely realized that no one spoke. The man behind him thrust him forward, and whispering wrathfully, “Quick, quick—sing up, thou little fool!” stepped back and left him there alone.

“NICK THOUGHT OF HIS MOTHER’S SINGING ON A SUMMER’S EVENING—DREW A DEEP BREATH AND BEGAN TO SING.”

A viol overhead took up the time, the gittern struck a few sharp notes. This unexpected music stopped the noise, and all was still. Nick thought of his mother’s voice singing on a summer’s evening among the hollyhocks, and as the viol’s droning died away he drew a deep breath and began to sing the words of “Heywood’s newest song”: