CHAPTER XXVI

TO SING BEFORE THE QUEEN

"Sir Fly hangs dead on the window-pane; The frost doth wind his shroud; Through the halls of his little summer house The north wind cries aloud.

We will bury his bones in the mouldy wall, And mourn for the n.o.ble slain: A southerly wind and a sunny sky-- Buzz! up he comes again!

Oh, Master Fly!"

Nick looked up from the music-rack and shivered. He had forgotten the fire in studying his song, and the blackened ends of the burnt-out logs lay smouldering on the hearth. The draught, too, whistled shrilly under the door, in spite of the rushes that he had piled along the crack.

The fog had been gone for a week. It was snapping cold; and through the peep-holes he had thawed upon the window-pane with his breath, he could see the h.o.a.r-frost lying in the shadow of the wall in the court below.

How forlorn the green old dial looked out there alone in the cold, with the winter dust whirling around it in little eddies upon the wind! The dial was fringed with icicles, like an old man's beard; and even the creeping shadow on its face, which told mid-afternoon, seemed frozen where it fell.

Mid-afternoon already, and he so much to do! Nick pulled his cloak about him, and turned to his song again:

"Sir Fly hangs dead on the window-pane; The frost doth wind his shroud--"

But there he stopped; for the boys were singing in the great hall below, and the whole house rang with the sound of the roaring chorus:

"Down-a-down, hey, down-a-down, Hey derry derry down-a-down!"

Nick put his fingers in his ears, and began all over again:

"Sir Fly hangs dead on the window-pane; The frost doth wind his shroud; Through the halls of his little summer house The north wind cries aloud."

But it was no use; all he could hear was:

"Down-a-down, hey, down-a-down, Hey derry derry down-a-down!"

How could a fellow study in a noise like that? He gave it up in despair, and kicking the chunks together, stood upon the hearth, warming his hands by the gathering blaze while he listened to the song:

"Cold's the wind, and wet's the rain; Saint Hugh, be our good speed!

Ill is the weather that bringeth no gain, Nor helps good hearts in need.

"Down-a-down, hey, down-a-down, Hey derry derry down-a-down!"

He could hear Colley Warren above them all. What a voice the boy had!

Like a golden horn blowing in the fresh of a morning breeze. It made Nick tingle, he could not tell why. He and Colley often sang together, and their voices made a quivering in the air like the ringing of a bell.

And often, while they sang, the viols standing in the corner of the room would sound aloud a deep, soft note in harmony with them, although n.o.body had touched the strings; so that the others cried out that the instruments were bewitched, and would not let the boys sing any more.

Colley Warren was Nick's best friend--a dark-eyed, quiet lad, as gentle as a girl, and with a mouth like a girl's mouth, for which the others sometimes mocked him, though they loved him none the less.

It was not because his voice was loud that it could be so distinctly heard; but it was nothing like the rest, and came through all the others like sunshine through a mist. Nick pulled the stool up closer, and sat down in the chimney-corner, humming a second to the tune, and blowing little glory-holes in the embers with the bellows. He liked the smell of a wood fire, and liked to toast his toes. He was a trifle drowsy, too, now that he was warm again to the marrow of his bones; perhaps he dozed a little.

But suddenly he came to himself again with a sense of a great stillness fallen over everything--no singing in the room below, and silence everywhere but in the court, where there was a trampling as of horses standing at the gate. And while he was still lazily wondering, a great cheer broke out in the room below, and there was a stamping of feet like cattle galloping over a bridge; and then, all at once, the door opened into the hallway at the foot of the stair, and the sound burst out as fire bursts from the c.o.c.k-loft window of a burning barn, and through the noise and over it Colley Warren's voice calling him by name: "Skylark!

Nick Skylark! Ho there, Nick! where art thou?"

He sprang to the door and kicked the rushes away. All the hall was full of voices, laughing, shouting, singing, and cheering. There were footsteps coming up the stair. "What there, Skylark! Ho, boy! Nick, where art thou?" he could hear Colley calling above them all. Out he popped his nose: "Here I am, Colley--what's to do? _Whatever in the world!_" and he ducked his head like a mandarin; for whizz--flap! two books came whirling up the stair and thumped against the panel by his ears.

"The news--the news, Nick! Have ye heard the news?" the lads were shouting as if possessed. "We're going to court! Hurrah, hurrah!" And some, with their arms about one another, went whirling out at the door and around the windy close like very madcaps, cutting such capers that the horses standing at the gate kicked up their heels, and jerked the horse-boys right and left like bundles of hay.

Nick leaned over the railing and stared.

"Come down and help us sing!" they cried. "Come down and shout with us in the street!"

"I can na come down--there's work to do!"

"Thy 'can na' be hanged, and thy work likewise! Come down and sing, or we'll fetch thee down. The Queen hath sent for us!"

"The Queen--hath sent--for us?"

"Ay, sent for us to come to court and play on Christmas day! Hurrah for Queen Bess!"

At that shrill cheer the startled horses fairly plunged into the street, and the carts that were pa.s.sing along the way were jammed against the opposite wall. The carriers bellowed, the horse-boys bawled, the people came running to see the row, and the apprentices flew out of the shops bareheaded, waving their dirty ap.r.o.ns and cheering l.u.s.tily, just for the fun of the chance to cheer.

"It's true!" called Colley, his dark eyes dancing like stars on the sea.

"Come down, Nick, and sing in the street with us all! We are going to Greenwich Palace on Christmas day to play before the Queen and the court--for the first time, Nick, in a good six years; and we're not to work till the new masque comes from the Master of the Revels! Come down, Nick, and sing with us out in the street; for we're going to court, we're going to court to sing before the Queen! Hurrah, hurrah!"

"Hurrah for good Queen Bess!" cried Nick; and up went his cap and down went he on the bal.u.s.ter-rail like a runaway sled, head first into the crowd, who caught him laughing as he came. Then all together they cantered out like a parcel of colts in a fresh, green field, and sang in the street before the school till the people cheered themselves hoa.r.s.e to hear such music on such a wintry day; sang until there was no other business on all the thoroughfare but just to listen to their songs; sang until the under-masters came out with their staves and drove them into the school again, to keep them from straining their throats by singing so loudly and so long in the frosty open air.

But a fig for staves and for under-masters! The boys clapped fast the gates behind them, and barred the under-masters out in the street, singing twice as loudly as before, and mocking at them with wry faces through the bars; and then trooped off up the old precentor's private stair and sang at his door until the old man could not hear his own ears, and came out storming and grim as grief.

But when he saw the boys all there, and heard them cheering him three times three, he could not storm to save his life, but only stood there, black and thin, against the yellow square of light, smiling a quaint smile that half was wrinkles and half was pride, shaking his lean forefinger at them as if he were beating time, and nodding until his head seemed almost nodding off.

"Hurrah for Master Nathaniel Gyles!" they shouted.

"_Primus Magister Scholarum, Custos Morum, Quartus Custos Rotulorum_,"

said the old man softly to himself, the firelight from behind him falling in a glory on his thin white hair. "Be off, ye rogues! Ye are not fit to waste good language on; or, faith, I'd Latin ye all as dumb as fishes in the depths of the briny sea!"

"Hurrah for the fishes in the sea!"

"Soft, ye knaves! Save thy throats for good Queen Bess!"

"Hurrah for good Queen Bess!"

"Be still, I say, ye good-for-nothing varlets; or ye sha'n't have pie and ale to-night. But marry, now, ye _shall_ have pie--ay, pie and ale without a stint; for ye are good lads, and ye have pleased the Queen at last; and I am as proud of ye as a peac.o.c.k is of his own tail!"

"Hurrah for the Queen--and the pie--and the ale! Hurrah for the peac.o.c.k and his tail!" shouted the boys; and straightway, seeing that they had made a rhyme, they gave a cheer shriller and longer than all the others put together, and went clattering down the stairway, singing at the top of their lungs:

Hurrah for the Queen, and the pie and the ale!

Hurrah for the peac.o.c.k, hurrah for his tail!

Hurrah for hurrah, and hurrah again-- We're going to court on Christmas day To sing before the Queen!"

"Good lads, good lads!" said the old precentor to himself, as he turned back into his little room. His eyes were shining proudly in the candle-light, yet the tears were running down his cheeks. A queer old man, Nat Gyles, and dead this many a long, long year; yet that night no man was happier than he.

But Master Gaston Carew, who had come for Nick, stood in the gathering dusk by the gate below, and stared up at the yellow square of light with a troubled look upon his reckless face.