Master Skylark Part 15

Broad-beamed Dutchmen, too, were there, and swarthy Spanish renegades, with st.u.r.dy craftsmen of the City guilds and stalwart yeomen of the guard in the Queen's rich livery.

But ere Nick had fairly begun to stare, confused by such a rout, Carew had hailed a wherry, and they were half-way over to the Southwark side.

Landing amid a deafening din of watermen bawling hoa.r.s.ely for a place along the Paris Garden stairs, the master-player hurried up the lane through the noisy crowd. Some were faring afoot into Surrey, and some to green St. George's Fields to buy fresh fruit and milk from the farm-houses and to picnic on the gra.s.s. Some turned aside to the Falcon Inn for a bit of cheese and ale, and others to the play-houses beyond the trees and fishing-ponds. And coming down from the inn they met a crowd of players, with Master Tom Heywood at their head, frolicking and cantering along like so many overgrown school-boys.

"So we are to have thee with us awhile?" said Heywood, and put his arm around Nick's shoulders as they trooped along.

"Awhile, sir, yes," replied Nick, nodding; "but I am going home soon, Master Carew says."

"Carew," said Heywood, suddenly turning, "how can ye have the heart?"

"Come, Heywood," quoth the master-player, curtly, though his whole face colored up, "I have heard enough of this. Will ye please to mind your own affairs?"

The writer of comedies lifted his brows, "Very well," he answered quietly; "but, lad, this much for thee," said he, turning to Nick, "if ever thou dost need a friend, Tom Heywood's one will never speak thee false."

"Sir!" cried Carew, clapping his hand upon his poniard Heywood looked up steadily. "How? Wilt thou quarrel with me, Carew? What ugly poison hath been filtered through thy wits? Why, thou art even falser than I thought! Quarrel with me, who took thy new-born child from her dying mother's arms when thou wert fast in Newgate gaol?"

Carew's angry face turned sickly gray. He made as if to speak, but no sound came. He shut his eyes and pushed out his hand in the air as if to stop the voice of the writer of comedies.

"Come," said Heywood, with deep feeling; "thou canst not quarrel with me yet--nay, though thou dost try thy very worst. It would be a sorry story for my soul or thine to tell to hers."

Carew groaned. The rest of the players had pa.s.sed on, and the three stood there alone. "Don't, Tom, don't!" he cried.

"Then how can ye have the heart?" the other asked again.

The master-player lifted up his head, and his lips were trembling. "'T is not the heart, Tom," he cried bitterly, "upon my word, and on the remnant of mine honour! 'Tis the head which doeth this. For, Tom, I cannot leave him go. Why, Tom, hast thou not heard him sing? A voice which would call back the very dead that we have loved if they might only hear. Why, Tom, 'tis worth a thousand pound! How can I leave him go?"

"Oh, fie for shame upon the man I took thee for!" cried Heywood.

"But, Tom," cried Carew, brokenly, "look it straightly in the face; I am no such player as I was,--this reckless life hath done the trick for me, Tom,--and here is ruin staring Henslowe and Alleyn in the eye. They cannot keep me master if their luck doth not change soon; and Burbage would not have me as a gift. So, Tom, what is there left to do? How can I shift without the boy? Nay, Tom, it will not serve. There's Cicely--not one penny laid by for her against a rainy day; and I'll be gone, Tom, I'll be gone--it is not morning all day long--we cannot last forever. Nay, I cannot leave him go!"

"But, sir," broke in Nick, wretchedly, holding fast to Hey wood's arm, "ye said that I should go!"

"Said!" cried the master-player, with a bitter smile; "why, Nick, I'd say ten times more in one little minute just to hear thee sing than I would stand to in a month of Easters afterward. Come, Nick, be fair.

I'll feed thee full and dress thee well and treat thee true--all for that song of thine."

"But, sir, my mother--"

"Why, Carew, hath the boy a mother, too?" cried the writer of comedies.

"Now, Heywood, on thy soul, no more of this!" cried the master-player, with quivering lips. "Ye will make me out no man, or else a fiend. I cannot let the fellow go--I will not let him go." His hands were twitching, and his face was pale, but his lips were set determinedly.

"And, Tom, there's that within me will not abide even _thy_ pestering.

So come, no more of it! Upon my soul, I sour over soon!"

So they came on gloomily past the bear-houses and the Queen's kennels.

The river-wind was full of the wild smell of the bears; but what were bears to poor Nick, whose last faint hope that the master-player meant to keep his word and send him home again was gone?

They pa.s.sed the Paris Garden and the tall round play-house that Francis Langley had just built. A blood-red banner flaunted overhead, with a large white swan painted thereon; but Nick saw neither the play-house nor the swan; he saw only, deep in his heart, a little gable-roof among old elms, with blue smoke curling softly up among the rippling leaves; an open door with tall pink hollyhocks beside it; and in the door, watching for him till he came again, his own mother's face. He began to cry silently.

"Nay, Nick, my lad, don't cry," said Heywood, gently; "'twill only make bad matters worse. _Never_ is a weary while; but the longest lane will turn at last: some day thou'lt find thine home again all in the twinkling of an eye. Why, Nick, 'tis England still, and thou an Englishman. Come, give the world as good as it can send."

Nick raised his head again, and, throwing the hair back from his eyes, walked stoutly along, though the tears still trickled down his cheeks.

"Sing thou my songs," said Heywood, heartily, "and I will be thy friend--let this be thine earnest." As he spoke he slipped upon the boy's finger a gold ring with a green stone in it cut with a tall tree: this was his seal.

They had now come through the garden to the Rose Theatre, where the Lord Admiral's company played; and Carew was himself again. "Come, Nicholas," said he, half jestingly, "be done with thy doleful dumps--care killed a cat, they say, lad. Why, if thy hateful looks could stab, I'd be a dead man forty times. Come, cheer up, lad, that I may know thou lovest me."

"But I do na love thee!" cried Nick, indignantly.

"Tut! Do not be so dour. Thou'lt soon be envied by ten thousand men.

Come, don't make a face at thy good fortune as though it were a tripe fried in tar. Come, lad, be pleased; thou'lt be the pet of every high-born dame in London town."

"I'd rather be my mother's boy," Nick answered simply.

CHAPTER XIX

THE ROSE PLAY-HOUSE

The play-house was an eight-sided, three-storied, tower-like building of oak and plastered lath, upon a low foundation of yellow brick. Two outside stairways ran around the wall, and the roof was of bright-red English tiles with a blue lead gutter at the eaves. There was a little turret, from the top of which a tall ash stave went up; and on the stave, whenever there was to be a play, there floated a great white flag on which was a crimson rose with a golden heart, just like the one that Nick with such delight had seen come up the Oxford road a few short days before.

Under the stairway was a narrow door marked "For the Playeres Onelie"; and in the doorway stood a shrewd-faced, common-looking man, writing upon a tablet which he held in his hand. There was a case of quills at his side, with one of which he was scratching busily, now and then prodding the ink-horn at his girdle. He held his tongue in his cheek, and moved his head about as the pen formed the letters: he was no expert penman, this Phil Henslowe, the stager of plays.

He looked up as they came to the step.

"A poor trip, Carew," said he, running his finger down the column of figures he was adding. "The play was hardly worth the candle--cleared but five pound; and then, after I had paid the carman three shilling fip to bring the stuff down from the City, 'twas lost in the river from the barge at Paul's wharf! A good two pound."

"Hard luck!" said Carew.

"Hard? Adamantine, I say! Why, 'tis very stones for luck, and the whole road rocky! Here's Burbage, Condell, and Will Shakspere ha' rebuilt Blackfriars play-house in famous shape; and, marry, where are we?"

Nick started. An idea came creeping into his head. Will Shakspere had married his mother's own cousin, Anne Hathaway of Shottery; and he had often heard his mother say that Master Shakspere had ever been her own good friend when they were young.

"He and Jonson be thick as thieves," said Henslowe; "and Chettle says that Will hath near done the book of a new play for the autumn--a master fine thing!--'Romulus and Juliana,' or something of that Italian sort, to follow Ben Jonson's comedy. Ned Alleyn played a sweet fool about Ben's comedy. Called it monstrous bad; and now it has taken the money out of our mouths to the tune of nine pound six the day--and here, while ye were gone, I ha' played my Lord of Pembroke's men in your 'Robin Hood,' Heywood, to scant twelve shilling in the house!"

Heywood flushed.

"Nay, Tom, don't be nettled; 'tis not the fault of thy play. There's naught will serve. We've tried old Marlowe and Robin Greene, Peele, Nash, and all the rest; but, what! they will not do--'tis Shakspere, Shakspere; our City flat-caps will ha' nothing but Shakspere!"

Nick listened eagerly. Master Will Shakspere must indeed be somebody in London town! He stared across into the drifting cloud of mist and smoke which hid the city like a pall, and wondered how and where, in that terrible hive of more than a hundred thousand men, he could find one man.

"I tell thee, Tom Heywood, there's some magic in the fellow, or my name's not Henslowe!" cried the manager. "His very words bewitch one's wits as nothing else can do. Why, I've tried them with 'Pierce Penniless,' 'Groat's Worth of Wit,' 'Friar Bacon,' 'Orlando,' and the 'Battle of Alcazar.' Why, tush! they will not even listen! And here I've put Martin Gosset into purple and gold, and Jemmy Donstall into a peach-colored gown laid down with silver-gilt, for 'Volteger'; and what?

Why, we play to empty stools; and the rascals owe me for those costumes yet--sixty shillings full! A murrain on Burbage and Will Shakspere too!--but I wish we had him back again. We'd make their old Blackfriars sick!" He shook his fist at a great gray pile of buildings that rose above the rest out of the fog by the landing-place beyond the river.

Nick stared. _That_ the play-house of Master Shakspere and the Burbages?