Master Skylark Part 29

"Here, if ye've anything to say, be saying it," said the turnkey. "'Tis a shilling's worth, ye mind."

Carew lifted up his head in the old haughty way, and clapped his shackled hand to his hip--they had taken his poniard when he came into the gaol. A queer look came over his face; taking his hand away, he wiped it hurriedly upon his jerkin. There were dark stains upon the silk.

"Ye sent for me, sir," said Nick.

Carew pa.s.sed his hand across his brow. "Yes, yes, I sent for thee. I have something to tell thee, Nick." He hesitated, and looked through the bars at the boy, as if to read his thoughts. "Thou'lt be good and true to Cicely--thou'lt deal fairly with my girl? Why, surely, yes." He paused again, as if irresolute. "I'll trust thee, Nick. We've taken money, thou and I; good gold and silver--tsst! what's that?" He stopped suddenly.

Nick heard no sound but the Spaniard's cursing.

"'Tis my fancy," Carew said. "Well, then, we've taken much good money, Nick; and I have not squandered all of it. Hark'e--thou knowest the old oak wainscot in the dining-hall, and the carven panel by the Spanish chest? Good, then! Upon the panel is a cherubin, and--tsst! what's that, I say?"

There was a stealthy rustling in the right-hand cell. The fellow in it had his ear pressed close against the bars. "He is listening,"

said Nick.

The fellow cursed and shook his fist, and then, when Master Carew dropped his voice and would have gone on whispering, set up so loud a howling and clanking of his chains that the lad could not make out one word the master-player said.

"Peace, thou dog!" cried Carew, and kicked the grating. But the fellow only yelled the louder.

Carew looked sorely troubled. "I dare not let him hear," said he. "The very walls of Newgate leak."

"_Yak, yah, yah, thou gallows-bird!_"

"Yet I must tell thee, Nick."

"_Yah, yah, dangle-rope!_"

"Stay! would Will Shakspere come? Why, here, I'll send him word. He'll come--Will Shakspere never bore a grudge; and I shall so soon go where are no grudges, envy, storms, or noise, but silence and the soft lap of everlasting sleep. He'll come--Nick, bid him come, upon his life, to the Old Bailey when I am taken up."

Nick nodded. It was strange to have his master beg.

Carew was looking up at a thin streak of light that came in through the narrow window at the stair. "Nick," said he, huskily, "last night I dreamed I heard thee singing; but 'twas where there was a sweet, green field and a stream flowing through a little wood. Methought 'twas on the road past Warwick toward Coventry. Thou'lt go there some day and remember Gaston Carew, wilt not, lad? And, Nick, for thine own mother's sake, do not altogether hate him; he was not so bad a man as he might easily have been."

"Come," growled the turnkey, who was pacing up and down like a surly bear; "have done. 'Tis a fat shilling's worth."

"'Twas there I heard thee sing first, Nick," said Carew, holding to the boy's hands through the bars. "I'll never hear thee sing again."

"Why, sir, I'll sing for thee now," said Nick, choking.

The turnkey was coming back when Nick began suddenly to sing. He looked up, staring. Such a thing dumfounded him. He had never heard a song like that in Newgate. There were rules in prison. "Here, here," he cried, "be still!" But Nick sang on.

The groaning, quarreling, and cursing were silent all at once. The guard outside, who had been sharpening his pike upon the window-ledge, stopped the shrieking sound. Silence like a restful sleep fell upon the weary place. Through dark corridors and down the mildewed stairs the quaint old song went floating as a childhood memory into an old man's dream; and to Gaston Carew's ear it seemed as if the melody of earth had all been gathered in that little song--all but the sound of the voice of his daughter Cicely.

It ceased, and yet a gentle murmur seemed to steal through the mouldy walls, of birds and flowers, sunlight and the open air, of once-loved mothers, and of long-forgotten homes. The renegade had ceased his cursing, and was whispering a fragment of a Spanish prayer he had not heard for many a day.

Carew muttered to himself. "And now old cares are locked in charmed sleep, and new griefs lose their bitterness, to hear thee sing--to hear thee sing. G.o.d bless thee, Nick!"

"'Tis three good shillings' worth o' time," the turnkey growled, and fumbled with the keys. "All for one shilling, too," said he, and kicked the door-post sulkily. "But a plague, I say, a plague! 'Tis no one's business but mine. I've a good two shillings' worth in my ears. 'Tis thirty year since I ha' heard the like o' that. But what's a gaol for?--man's delight? Nay, nay. Here, boy, time's up! Come out o' that."

But he spoke so low that he scarcely heard himself; and going to the end of the corridor, he marked at random upon the wall.

"Oh, Nick, I love thee," said the master-player, holding the boy's hands with a bitter grip. "Dost thou not love me just a little? Come, lad, say that thou lovest me."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'WHY, SIR, I'LL SING FOR THEE NOW.' SAID NICK, CHOKING."] "Nay, Master Carew," Nick answered soberly, "I do na love thee, and I will na say I do, sir; but I pity thee with all my heart.

And, sir, if thy being out would keep me stolen, still I think I'd wish thee out--for Cicely. But, Master Carew, do na break my hands."

The master-player loosed his grasp. "I will not seek to be excused to thee," he said huskily. "I've prisoned thee as that clod prisons me; but, Nick, the play is almost out, down comes the curtain on my heels, and thy just blame will find no mark. Yet, Nick, now that I am fast and thou art free, it makes my heart ache to feel that 'twas not I who set thee free. Thou canst go when pleaseth thee, and thank me nothing for it. And, Nick, as my sins be forgiven me, I truly meant to set thee free and send thee home. I did, upon my word, and on the remnant of mine honour!"

"Time's good and up, sirs," said the turnkey, coming back.

Carew thrust his hand into his breast.

"I must be going, sir," said Nick.

"Ay, so thou must--all things must go. Oh, Nick, be friendly with me now, if thou wert never friendly before. Kiss me, lad. There--now thy hand." The master-player clasped it closely in his own, and pressing something into the palm, shut down the fingers over it. "Quick! Keep it hid," he whispered. "'Tis the chain I had from Stratford's burgesses, to some good usage come at last."

"Must I come and fetch thee out?" growled the turnkey.

"I be coming, sir."

"Thou'lt send Will Shakspere? And, oh, Nick," cried Carew, holding him yet a little longer, "thou'lt keep my Cicely from harm?"

"I'll do my best," said Nick, his own eyes full.

The turnkey raised his heavy bunch of keys. "I'll ding thee out o' this"

said he.

And the last Nick Attwood saw of Gaston Carew was his wistful eyes hunting down the stairway after him, and his hand, with its torn fine laces, waving at him through the bars.

And when he came to the Mermaid Inn Master Shakspere's comedy was done, and Master Ben Jonson was telling a merry tale that made the tapster sick with laughing.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

CICELY DISAPPEARS

That Master Will Shakspere should be so great seemed pa.s.sing strange to Nick, he felt so soon at home with him. It seemed as if the master-maker of plays had a magic way of going out to and about the people he met, and of fitting his humor to them as though he were a glover with their measure in his hand.

With Nick he was nothing all day long but a jolly, wise, and gentle-hearted boy, wearing his greatness like an old cloth coat, as if it were a long-accustomed thing, and quite beyond all pride, and went about his business in a very simple way. But in the evening when the wits were met together at his house, and Nick sat on the hindmost bench and watched the n.o.ble gentlemen who came to listen to the sport, Master Will Shakspere seemed to have the knack of being ever best among them all, yet of never too much seeming to be better than the rest.

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 f.a.g-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.